


Wayward Family

by lumpy_space_princess



Series: Wayward Family [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Everybody Lives, Hurt/Comfort, Lucifer Needs a Hug (Supernatural), M/M, Multi, No beta we fall like Lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 31,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28543578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumpy_space_princess/pseuds/lumpy_space_princess
Summary: Winchester home for displaced and disobedient angels, front desk speaking.Slices of life from a slightly kinder world. Sam, Dean, and Cas are joined by Gabriel, Lucifer, Michael, and Adam in the family they built together. It's not always easy, but they have each other.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Michael/Adam Milligan
Series: Wayward Family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123694
Comments: 32
Kudos: 90





	1. A is for Apple (Sam/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- On the catharsis of clarity.

"It wasn't an apple, you know." Lucifer tosses the gleaming red fruit lightly, palm to palm. He leans a hip against the counter. Tracks the apple with his eyes. A smile, rueful and sly, tugs at the corners of his lips. "I can see where they'd have preferred it, though. You ever eaten raw quince? _Sour_." The memory is tart and bright across his tongue, and he shivers. 

Sam pads over, perches next to him on the countertop. Slides one hand down the flat of his back and across, to twine his fingers into the belt loop over his left hip and rest there. Lucifer leans into his side, and Sam feels the tension in him ebb fractionally. 

"I'm amazed there's fruit to be found in that story at all." Sam chuckles, tilts his head onto Lucifer's shoulder. "I always thought it was a metaphor. But no, you actually handed Eve the sourest fruit in Creation, didn't you?"

Lucifer shrugs the shoulder not currently supporting Sam's head. "Eh, Dad's always been big on the melodrama. If they'd truly been innocent, the temptation wouldn't have worked. But she took it willingly from my hand: the first unembellished truth your species had been allowed. No more averted gazes, no more pretense of perfection. Only your flaws, _His_ flaws, and the necessity of facing them. That was never going to taste sweet." 

Sam shifts, looks into his lover's face, but Lucifer focuses solely on the rhythm of his hands. "And for the first time, they all saw what I saw. Innocence transmuted into naivety. Fallibility. Humanity. "

Sam hesitates for a soft moment, but he won't pull punches with Lucifer. Never has. 

"Was it worth it?"

The apple ceases its pendulations. Lucifer turns his head, finally raises crystalline eyes to Sam's. Millennia uncountable since that first offering and the sea of consequences which followed, but the depths, though brittle, are luminously clear. 

In the closeness between them, Lucifer holds the apple delicately on the tips of his fingers. Sam smiles, accepts. 

Holds Lucifer's gaze, unblinking, as he breaks the crisp flesh with his teeth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? This was inside me and wouldn't leave me alone until it clawed its way out. It's a WIP, and will be updated according to a schedule determined by balancing my need to write against my depression.


	2. B is for Baby (Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Home is where we are.

Tipping his head back with relish, Dean finished his beer. Leaning out the driver's-side window of the Impala, he tossed the bottle to the ground with the first three. He surveyed the carnage appreciatively. Back in Cedar Rapids, they'd ganked a slaughter-happy harvest god with a ravenous appetite for human sacrifies, and the reformed worshipers had been profusely grateful for their lives. Generously so. Which was, to put a long story short, why Castiel was currently sitting on the roof of the car extemporizing over his nineteenth bottle of honey mead. 

Angel of the Lord or not, he'd passed tipsy five bottles ago.

"... and that's why. The bees. The _bees_ , Dean. Pollinators are vital to the integrity of the food supply chain. Taking their honey does not hurt the bees. So there is nothing inherently harmful in its use as an ingredient to produce this beverage." Cas abruptly lapsed into quiet contemplation, seeming to hold silent counsel with the bottle in his hand. Then he looked up and around. "Where are we?"

Dean surveyed the cornfield in which they'd parked for the night, arms folded on the window frame. "Pretty sure we haven't crossed the border into Missouri yet. We'll make it back tomorrow."

Cas climbed gingerly down off the roof, swaying. Dean mentally revised his judgement of his drunkenness. He grinned and canted out the window, reaching for Castiel and catching him by the forearm. Cas stumbled forward to him, and Dean pressed his forehead into the angel's sternum. With more affection than coordination, Cas petted Dean's hair, muttering endearments in Enochian. 

Soft laughter bubbled up in Dean's throat. He'd take this. They'd had a win today, cricket-song echoed through the balmy Iowa darkness, and there wasn't a cloud or city light for miles. Nothing but stars and Castiel, shining down on him. 

He lifted his head, grinned up at Cas with sleepy affection. "Wanna call it a night? I'm gonna crawl into the back, catch a couple hours of shuteye." He smirked at the angel. "Or... there's a blanket in the trunk. It's a nice night. We could sprawl out on the ground. If you, y'know. Feel like sleeping."

The question of sleep, apparently, required all of Castiel's concentration. His forehead wrinkled as he considered. "I do not require sleep. I think." 

Dean pulled Castiel's hand to the side of his face, nuzzling against it. "Wasn't really asking if you needed it. Just whether you wanted to."

At that, softness flooded over Cas's features. Without a word, he turned and walked to the rear of the car, rapping knuckles lightly on the Impala as he went. Dean tossed him the keys, then opened the door and followed. Cas popped open the trunk and retrieved the blanket. 

As they drifted to sleep in a clearing a dozen feet from his Baby, Cas's head on his arm under the open sky, Dean could think of nowhere else he'd choose to be.


	3. C is for Cold (Sam/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Connection, warmth, life. These are everything.

Sam gasps awake at the sharp point of an elbow to his ribs. Lucifer is struggling in his sleep, all cold sweat and straining limbs. He groans and thrashes, and Sam grabs at his hands, pulling him closer. Lucifer awakens wild-eyed. Immediately he falls silent and still, muscles coiled for flight. 

"Lucifer! Luce, hey, you're all right. It's me, we're home, you're safe, it's a nightmare. It's ok, you're ok." Sam murmurs a stream of reassurances and runs his hands over Lucifer, arms, shoulders, spine, back up to his face. Moment by pressing moment, the tension drains from his frame. He screws his eyes shut and buries his face in Sam's neck, wraps arms and legs around him tightly. Sam strokes reassurances along his spine. Feels the creep of frost settled along Lucifer's skin, emanating from his core, and doesn't need to ask.

The Cage had been a wasteland. A nuclear winter of the psyche. When it wasn't inflicting sundry hallucinations of more physical atrocities on its inhabitants, it left them in contemplation of the shrieking void that was isolation. No connection. Not to the outside world, not to each other. Even the warmth in the interstices between neurons, between cells, fled in the face of that vacuum. 

It was lack. It was abandon. It was zero Kelvin, for the soul. 

As Lucifer's breath calms and his pulse mellows, Sam rubs life back into his skin. Trails kisses sparklike down his neck, along his collarbone, across his fingers. Lucifer carries that hollow vastness within him, tendrils rooted through his grace by eons of confinement. But Sam always pulls him back from the edge of the abyss. Patiently, and with aching kindness.

Back and back and back.   
To connection, to togetherness, to warmth.   
To their home.   
To their bed.   
To him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You don't need to tell me about how bad this is. I already know. It had to happen anyway.


	4. D is for Destiny (Adam/Michael)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Michael thinks too much about his path. Adam pulls him off it.

They've been on this path for hours, but Michael doesn't seem to be slowing down. 

He wouldn't, Adam supposes. Even contained in his vessel, limited and bound as he is, he's lost precious little of his power. A sentient supernova cast into corporeal form would hardly tire from an afternoon jaunt through the countryside. Adam, though, wholly mortal, struggles to keep pace. 

He jogs forward a few purposeful strides and clasps Michael's shoulder. "Hey, Mike? Could we maybe... " He gestures vaguely in the direction of the side of the trail.

"Hm?" The dazed look he's worn for the past hour or so bleeds from his face, and he focuses on Adam. For the first time, he takes in the human's ruddy cheeks, his deep panting breaths.

"Oh! Forgive me. I didn't realize." 

Near the edge of the path, an old, gnarled tree has grown almost parallel to the ground for perhaps 20 feet before bending skyward again. It forms a natural bench, and Adam drops onto it with visible relief. Michael leans against another nearby trunk, hands in his pockets, eyes losing focus somewhere in the middle distance. 

Adam takes several long draughts from his water bottle, gathering condensation across his fingertips. He watches his companion carefully in his periphery. Walking with Michael didn't often evolve into actual _hiking_. 

"Are you all right? You're quiet today." 

The archangel hums noncommittally. After a few moments, his demeanor shifts, becomes more definite. He spares Adam a coy smile and sideways glance. "I apologize for my silence, Adam. I didn't mean to worry you."

Adam snickers. Runs fingertips over the water bottle again, flicking the water at Michael. Michael's resulting expression could only be described as _displeased housecat_. Adam guffaws outright, and reaches to pull the angel down next to him on the tree. They topple together, for a few moments all easy companionship. Adam scrubs his damp hand roughly over Michael's thigh, and is met with a look of affronted indignity. Drier, he chuckles and grabs Michael's left hand in his right. 

"The real mystery is how I haven't earned a smiting yet," Adam says jovially.

"Well," Michael pauses, mock-serious. "I live with Dean, and he remains un-smote. I believe you have relatively little to worry about." 

Adam howls laughter, and Michael looks smug. _This_ is why they're good together, Adam thinks. Michael's presence is imposing; his personality commands reverence. Even Sam and Dean still restrain themselves around Michael, after all this time fighting and living alongside him.

Not Adam. 

He rests his forehead against Michael's shoulder, mirth fading away to a comfortable closeness. "Seriously, though. Something's bugging you. Can I help?"

Michael shakes his head, releases Adam's hand to settle an arm around his shoulders instead. "I appreciate the offer, but I doubt it. Just... contemplating."

"Contemplating what?"

"A conversation." Michael huffs. "Yesterday. With Heylel." 

Adam stills. Michael referred to Lucifer by his older name only rarely, and never casually. "What did he want?"

"We were discussing his distaste for demons. It was only in passing, but it left me thoughtful." Michael's gaze has gone far-off again. "How much of their path do they choose? How much of his path did _he_ choose?" 

Then, quieter: 

"How much of his path did I force on him?" 

Adam stays quiet, just listening. 

"Since my captivity, I truly wonder how much of what we do is ordained. How much of my path is immutable, whether I have the capacity to alter it even now. Odd, to spend so much time engaged in the contemplation of free will." He meets Adam's eyes then, melancholy. "Angels are ill-equipped for such activities."

Adam cocks his head, then smiles, bright and unexpected. "Nah," he says, tugging Michael to his feet. "Your destiny's name was 'Dean Winchester,' and just look where you are now." He pulls Michael backward, half-tripping, playful. "Of course, if you want to test the theory my big bro's just a couple miles back that way..."

Michael gives a theatrical shudder. "Perish the thought." He shakes himself a little. _Like a bird settling his feathers_ , Adam thinks fondly. 

"At any rate," Michael remarks, striding back to the path, "we should be getting home. Or are you still fatigued? We could fly."

Adam considers the path before him. He squints at the sky, judges the time until nightfall. The trail would lead them home well before sunset. Then again... 

He crashes into the underbrush, relatively certain he's headed in the direction of the bunker. He can feel Michael's astonishment, then hears a delighted crunching of leaves behind him.

"Race you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried for more seriousness in this chapter but Adam was HAVING NONE OF IT
> 
> (Michael has the funnest Winchester and he knows it)


	5. E is for Envy (Sam/Gabriel/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- How do you compete with fate? But maybe that's asking the wrong question.

Gabriel kneels between bookshelves, carefully embellishing the warding along the common room wall, when he hears shuffling steps pass through to the kitchen. A gait he'd recognize blindfolded; he calls out a greeting without pausing his work. 

"Morning, Samshine." The paint he applies to the wall in tiny, measured strokes flashes brilliant gold as each sigil takes shape. Concocting the shining liquid had taken no small amount of time and effort, his own grace, and a handful of outlandish ingredients unearthed from the depths of the bunker's dusty stores. When put to use by purposeful, knowledgeable hands, the power that roiled through the wards was a tangible thing. 

He smiles faintly at each bright glimmer. 

Moments later he hears Sam return, and the soft _thunk_ of a mug set on the long table. Gabriel feels him draw near. With a flourish, the last sigil flares completion. He looks up at Sam, who appraises the new additions. 

"Have you been at this all night?" Gabriel caps the paint carefully. Sam extends a hand to help him stand, and long arms pull him gracefully upright and wrap him firmly against the human's chest. Gabriel's eyes drift shut for a moment. He nods before tilting his head to accept a lingering kiss from a warm and sleepy Sam. 

"Wanted to surprise you. The warding needed a little love after that last stunt you chuckleheads pulled. Next time you decide to summon an eldritch abomination, do me a favor and do it _outside_ , wouldja? This is delicate spellwork, don't need you blowing it all to hell just to dredge up non-Euclidean horrors." Gabriel maintains a steady stream of grumbles, but his eyes shine with amusement. He reaches out to the table, grabs the mug, and gleefully steals Sam's coffee. Sam chuckles and leans back against the edge of the table, pulls Gabriel flush against him. He knocks their foreheads together.

"I won't pretend I'm not grateful."

Gabriel smirks. "How grateful are we talking? Because you could always get creative and show me. I have suggestions. Diagrams, if necessary." 

He can taste Sam's laughter on his lips, when the mug is suddenly plucked from Gabriel's hands. 

Lucifer wraps himself around the coffee, cradles it close beneath his chin. His eyes are barely open, and he seems to have traded his usual hairstyle for a hedge caught in a gale. Sam huffs amusement. He wraps one arm around him, tucks him into his side. 

Gabriel snorts. "So much for the angel of the dawn. It's almost noon, Luci." Lucifer tilts forward just enough to headbutt Gabriel. His only answer is an indistinct _mrrrrr_ , his face burrowed in Gabriel's neck. 

Sam pushes them both away gently, pries one of Lucifer's hands free of the mug and takes it in his own. "Come on, you. Help me make more coffee." Another kiss for Gabriel, and Sam leads Lucifer to the kitchen. 

Gabriel watches them go, emotions commingling throughout his grace, weaving between his vessel's ribs. 

He would free Lucifer and the others from the Cage over and over again, without hesitation, were it required. He loved his brothers with a depth of feeling indescribable in any human tongue. 

And he would do anything, _everything_ , for Sam. 

He pads silently after them, pauses in the entrance to the kitchen. 

They stand together near the coffeepot, liquid burbling gently as it brews. Lucifer is curled against Sam's chest, head tucked under his chin. Sam rests his cheek against the crown of Lucifer's head, gently scratching his scalp. 

They fit against each other so well, no space between them. Fashioned for each other by fate. Two parts of a whole. 

Something twists in Gabriel's stomach. Jealousy and affection in equal measure, and darker undercurrents of what might be fear. 

Then Lucifer cracks an eye open, just enough to meet Gabriel's gaze. Gabriel feels a whisper in his mind, a tentative brush of grace on grace. Ephemeral, inquisitive, and cautious, but tender. 

It feels like love. 

Lucifer extends a hand, palm up. 

Gabriel allows himself to be sandwiched between them, and suffers himself to be kissed. 

Finds that perhaps, when he lets the fear fade, there was space for him all along. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor angsty Gabe. It's ok. Sam and Luci love you.
> 
> If you're a nigh-omniscient celestial being, I guess you can get away with doing polyamory the psychic way. For all the rest of us: USE YOUR WORDS k thx


	6. F is for Feathers (Sam/Gabriel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I would give you all of me. 
> 
> Context: timeline-wise, this happens well prior to the previous chapters of this fic.

Dandelion leaf. 

Nine young stalks of yarrow flower. Tenth tossed into the fire, with appropriate ceremony. 

Wormwood, finely shredded and crushed. 

Sam combines the herbs in a small satchet, seals it, shakes to mix. Beside him, Gabriel stirs frankincense in a small crucible over flames that flicker now blue, now yellow, now purple. Gabriel wouldn't tell Sam what his contribution to the fire had been, despite his insistence, but now that Sam has smelled it he thinks perhaps it's better that he doesn't know. The miasma which fills the small room has a disconcerting organic quality, a cloying sweetness reminiscent of rotting fruit. 

Sam tends to a larger clay jar of gradually softening honey, a task which, mercifully, requires only a refurbished hotplate. He stirs it counterclockwise, slowly, to avoid incorporating bubbles of air. Gabriel and Sam work in silence. Dean had taken one look at Sam's face and made himself scarce. His ever-reliable instinct for avoiding emotional confrontation on display; in the moment, Sam can't find it in himself to fault him. 

Dean will have his part to play, when the time comes. 

_Four tiny sparks huddled against the void, cold and cold and cold and a horror of pain and -_

Sam refocuses. Grates beeswax into the honey. Back and forth, back and forth. Pause. Stir. Grate again. 

Gabriel watches him out of the corners of his eyes. 

Clay from the Nile. It had turned a luxuriant cream-white as it dried over the preceeding days. Sam taps the mass of it apart with a large kitchen spoon. Picks large pieces with deft fingers and places them into a consecrated mortar. Digs into the paper bag beside him and comes up with the last bundle of dried herbs. Root of _Angelica archangelica_. A grimace flits across his face, here and gone again. Gabriel makes no comment. 

_\- you put them there you put them there oh God oh oh oh I put us there -_

Sam struggles to see past the blizzard behind his eyes. He works the dry roots into the crumbling clay with the pestle.

Gabriel rests one hand across the back of his. Sam looks up, insensate, can't really process what he's seeing. Nothing in him but whiteout conditions, forty below. 

_\- I can still feel them, the walls are weak and they're pressing outward and I can feel them reaching -_

"Sammy?"

_\- out out out need to get OUT_

**"Sam."**

Gabriel's true voice cracks through his vessel's softer tones, and something in Sam snaps back into place. He sees Gabriel then, hands clasped to Sam's upper arms, brow furrowed and eyes dark. 

"You back with me?" Sam hears what Gabriel doesn't say. _Are you all right? You scared me. I love you._

"Yeah," Sam exhales forcefully, shakes his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, Gabe. I'm good." 

Gabriel chuffs. "Can't bullshit a bullshitter, Sam." A beat, then Gabriel retreats, appraises the crucible. "This is done. We can combine them now." 

Carefully gripping the crucible in a pair of long iron tongs, Gabriel pours the frankincense into the honey as Sam stirs. The amber liquids bubble and darken where they meet. Sam sifts the dusty clay slowly into the mixture, causing it to thicken and stick to the spoon. Sam drops the satchet into the jar, and uses the spoon to press it down until it submerges. 

Gabriel considers. "Right. Sweet goo, frankly unsavory goo, gourmet dirt, weird metaphysical teabag. Check, check, check, check." He pauses. "One ingredient left." He turns to Sam, humor abruptly gone. 

"Cover your eyes."

Sam throws his arm over his eyes. Even knowing this was coming, he's still somewhat in awe. Of the power they're putting into this spell. Of the consequences, if it works. Of what Gabriel is about to do, most of all. 

That he would give this for him. For them.

Even through his arm and screwed-shut eyelids, Sam can almost see the flash. A flurry of sensations wash over his skin: crackling energy and visceral emotion and light so intense he can feel it, a breaking wave around him. But mostly he just feels grace. It feels like splendor, like glory, but also like home and comfort and a love he recognizes as though he's known it all his life. 

The swell subsides. "All right. You can look now." 

Sam gapes. He thought he was prepared. 

In his open palm, Gabriel holds seven perfect golden feathers, sharp-edged and glinting in the firelight. Sam finds it difficult to look directly at them. The light, where they reflect it, is faintly kaleidoscopic. Sam swallows audibly. 

Gabriel turns to the jar. Solemnly crushes each feather to a fine powder between his hands before allowing it to fall into the honey. 

He exhales. "It's done. Just need to let this cool overnight. Now all we need is the new moon tomorrow, and..." He trails off. Turns back to Sam. 

Sam suddenly can't get enough air. He pulls Gabriel to him roughly, arms around his shoulders and eyes clenched shut. 

"It's ok, Sam. It'll work. We'll get them out."

Gabriel holds him until the shaking subsides, and hears what he doesn't say. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day after this chapter (in all its drama and excitement) will ALSO be a chapter. Don't want to say which one, because that would spoil the surprise ;) but you should get it sometime next week provided my life doesn't go to crap in the interim.
> 
> Also if you were in a large city in the US today I hope you are safe and well. That is all, I love you <3


	7. G is for Grace (Adam/Michael)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- _Michahel gratia._

In a scarce and precious moment when Atlas reclaims his burden from the Winchester family, Adam contentedly meanders through the bunker. Currents of air swirl lazy dust motes through the languorous afternoon light. As he reaches the common room, he hears a faint pop and hiss, slow and drifting. 

Michael stands with his back turned half to the door, mesmerized by the leisurely spin of the old gramophone, and the breath catches in Adam's throat. Sunlight weaves through his tumble of dark curls, and illuminates him in profile. Half his face glows as though lit from within, dark bronze complexion now aureate, resplendent.

The song begins, trumpet winding ethereal notes that echo faintly up to the high ceiling. 

_"Stars shining bright above you,_  
_Night breezes seem to whisper 'I love you' - "_

Adam takes a halting step forward, and Michael looks up. He wears an expression of overwhelming fondness, eyes softly crinkled, and Adam's chest aches with it. 

Michael crosses the room in liquid strides. Between one breath and the next, he's in Adam's space, and slides one hand around his waist, cups the other gently palm to palm. 

The melody pulls them in a placid swinging arc across the floor. Adam follows Michael's lead ( _again, still, always_ ). He moves with an undefiable strength, an incomparable precision, confidence and poise woven through every fiber of him. 

They draw gradually closer, their movements slow; they bask in one another. Adam's fingers twine in the curls at the base of Michael's neck, and the angel's smile curves against the space behind his jaw. He whispers the lyrics sweetly across Adam's skin into the air between them. 

_"Stars fading but I linger on, dear,_  
_Still craving your kiss."_

Adam senses a shivering presence around them. He knows, without sight, without touch, that Michael has wrapped them in his wings. 

Since the Cage, the prayers Adam sends to Michael are of a different nature. It is not solely that because of Michael, Adam survives. But because of Michael - with Michael - Adam _lives_. 

_Dei Gratia_? 

No. Adam shakes his head. As they revolve slowly together, each caught in the gravity of the other, Adam knows better. 

_"But in your dreams, whatever they be,_  
_You gotta make me a promise, promise to me -_  
_\- You'll dream -_  
_Dream a little dream of me."_

He knows better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again today's chapter was supposed to be drama, and Adam wasn't having it. I don't blame him though. After yesterday, we could all use some syrupy fluff. 
> 
> As displayed here, Michael has [excellent taste](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxrws7omOHQ) in music.


	8. H is for Hunt (Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- You're not dying today. Not on my watch. 
> 
> Peep the new tag for Canon-Typical Violence. This is still T, and I don't think it's too graphic (especially by Supernatural standards), but consider this a heads-up for monster beheadings and a lot of mentions of blood if that kind of thing is a trigger to you. If you decide to skip it, you won't miss anything in the way of backstory.

Veiled in shadows, Castiel stalks through darkened halls. He grips his blade tightly, muscles taut and senses sharp. Dean is at his back, gun trained low ahead in one hand, machete in the other. 

Somewhere in this warehouse are close to fifty fresh human corpses.   
Nearly twice that number of living captives.   
And half a dozen Leviathan. 

He can feel them up ahead, at the edge of his senses. There had been a time when he could pinpoint them exactly, when he'd have flown into the fray and cut them down without remorse or hesitation. He would have blazed with purpose, unconcerned with the lives of their prisoners. Would have consigned the hostages to the care of his Father and considered it mercy. 

When collateral damage would've been just another consequence of duty. 

He has both lost power, and gained perspective, since then. 

They approach a sharp turn into a wider corridor. He glances back to meet Dean's eyes. Dean signals with a jerk of his head and a flash of his hands: _I'll cover you_. Castiel nods, slides against the wall until he can sweep low and sharp around the corner. 

The hallway is abandoned. Light reflects off the walls farther on, visible through an open utility door. They're near the back of the building now. Ahead should be the manufacturing floor. Straight through to the loading dock, and he can just sense Gabriel's grace in that direction as he and Sam approach from the outside. There are no other exits; between them, the Leviathan and humans are penned in. 

Looked at one way, they have their quarry cornered. 

Castiel tries not to look at it the other way, even as his mind screams _trap_.

They approach the door. Pause beyond the reach of the light and listen. 

Labored breathing and shuffling feet. A soft whimper. He extends his faltering grace as much as he can, concentrates. Humans in... five, perhaps six large groups? The Leviathan seem to be clustered farther in. 

Dean shadows his movements. They could do this dance in their sleep. _You go left, I'll go right_. 

Then the smash of a door being kicked in, glass breaking near the dock, and there is no more time. 

Castiel slides through the utility door, blade high and ready, and Dean skids through behind him. He ducks as one of the captives, a large man with pupils blown and eyes glassy, charges at him. He uses the momentum of the attack to throw his shoulder into the man's back. His assailant hits the wall and crumples, unconscious. Three others round a large storage tank and run at them, the same dazed expression on their faces. 

"What the _hell_ did they do to these people?" Dean yells, slamming the butt of his gun between another man's eyes. Castiel can read the fury in his stance. His stomach clenches as another of the victims rushes Dean, but Dean's reflexes are good. He turns and allows the man to rush past him, pushes as he goes, and the man stumbles and sails through the open door. Castiel gives the last much the same treatment, and Dean slams and bars the utility door behind them. The men howl mindlessly and beat the door from the hallway, but they're out of the way, for the moment. 

Castiel kneels next to the first man, heaped near the wall. He brushes fingers over his forehead, wrinkles his brow as he focuses on the victim's body. "Drugged. Nothing magical or demonic that I can detect. I believe he will live."

Dean nods once, terse. "We need to move."

Alone again, they advance toward the steadily building sound of fighting. 

They pass other groups of humans, chained and caged. All seem drugged, most into soporific stupor. A few thrash against their chains, straining to reach them. Castiel hangs back a moment, concern in his eyes. Dean shakes his head. 

The only way to help them now is to dispatch their captors. Dean and Castiel press on. 

They round the last tank, and find themselves amidst a sea of blood.

Gabriel is surrounded. Two Leviathan bodies drip ichor at his feet, heads conspicuously absent. Three more restrain him; a tiny woman, and two tall, heavyset men. His eyes glow blue and he struggles violently in their grip. The last advances on him, toothy smile wide and getting wider, wider. 

Sam holds five human men at bay. Several have already fallen, writhing on the ground or gruesomely still. These fight more desperately than those who had greeted Dean and Castiel, and a few are armed with twisted metal scraps. 

Every surface within reach of Sam is drenched in red. 

Dean lunges toward his brother, snarling as he passes. Castiel focuses on Gabriel, swipes his blade backhand at the grinning monster. One of the creatures holding the archangel, the woman, shouts a warning, and the advancing Leviathan ducks the swing. The distraction is enough, however. Gabriel shakes free of his captors, and between moments reappears in front of the larger of the two men. A blow to the ribs sends the creature flying backward. It hits a storage tank with a sickening crunch. Castiel leaps for the woman, and a clean slice sends the Leviathan's head rolling; he kicks it away, hard. Gabriel has the second man cornered, but the Leviathan who must be their leader leaps onto his back. 

Out of nowhere, Sam crashes into the standing Leviathan. Dean sprints after him. It buys Gabriel the moment he needs. He reaches behind him, over his shoulders, and grabs either side of the creature's skull. There is a horrible squelch as Gabriel, with all his inhuman strength, removes the Leviathan leader's head and flings it clear. The body twitches for a few moments, but it, too, falls away. 

Two to go. 

As Gabriel bounds after the one he'd thrown into the tank, Castiel spins to see the last Leviathan astride Dean, pinning him to the ground. Sam slumps against a wall, eyes open but bleeding profusely from the head and side. The monster's teeth are inches from Dean's exposed throat. 

_No!_

Cas chokes on an unnecessary breath. He reacts without thought, all his failing grace lashing outward at the Leviathan. The impact throws it off Dean, and then Castiel is on top of it, and the monster sees death in his eyes. 

_You will not have him._

The angel blade flashes. The light in the Leviathan's gaze dulls, and the head tumbles away. 

The sudden quiet rings in Castiel's ears. The only sounds are the panting breaths of the Winchester brothers, and the muted groans of the chained captives. 

He turns away from the devastation and seeks Dean. His human is covered in blood, but less so than his brother. Dean examines Sam's wounds with a tense concentration. 

"Hey, Sammy. You with me?" Sam is dazed, but nods. Dean peers into his eyes, checks his pupils. Looking for signs of concussion, Castiel guesses. He seems satisfied by what he finds, and exhales roughly. "Well, you're bleeding like a stuck pig, and that stab wound's gonna need stitches unless Gabe can heal you. But I think you'll be ok." He smiles tightly, clasps Sam on the shoulder. Turns back to Cas. "You all right?"

Castiel nods. "I am exhausted but fine, Dean. Are you?" 

Dean grunts an affirmative, and peers over his shoulder. "Dammit. Gabriel!"

Castiel turns. Gabriel staggers past him, slumps against the wall near Sam and collapses to the floor. He too is sodden in blood both human and Leviathan, but upon closer inspection Castiel realizes that much of it is his own as well. His face is pale, and he bites out a curse as Dean lifts his shredded shirt to reveal four deep gouges across his midsection. 

"You know, I've had better dates," he pants out. "Wore out all my mojo keeping my insides from becoming outsides already. Cassie, you think you can fix up Sam?" 

Castiel shakes his head, and feels rising desperation. "I am likewise incapable of healing at the moment. Can you be moved? We need to get you home." 

Gabriel grimaces, then nods. "Sorry, Deano. Looks like I'm going to bleed all over your nice car." 

Dean forces a laugh, but it comes out too high, too breathy. "Just make sure you live to clean it up." He stands, wiping his hands on his jeans in a vain attempt to dry them of blood. "I'm gonna go bag up the heads before these bastards have a chance to pull themselves back together. Cas, keep an eye on them." 

Castiel watches him go. He listens to the moaning of the prisoners, to Sam and Gabriel's murmured conversation as they rest together. 

Tries, and fails, to avoid looking at the pile of human bodies. _If we'd only gotten here sooner_ , he thinks, _these people might still be alive_. Emotions swirl in his gut. Chief among them, guilt. 

Presently Dean returns, phone in one hand and a sack dripping a grisly black slime in the other. "Uh huh, yeah. Right off 92nd, about three miles outside of town. Yeah. 'Bout five dozen bodies, maybe eighty survivors." He pauses. "Thanks man. We owe you one." He ends the call, slides the phone into his pocket. Castiel looks at him quizzically. 

"Called Garth. He's going to grab a couple guys and come deal with... with this." He scrubs hands down his face, then leans down to pull Sam upright. Sam groans and staggers into him. Dean pulls one arm over his shoulders. "Can you manage Gabriel? Gotta get them to the car." Castiel nods, and helps Gabriel to his feet. He supports most of the smaller man's weight, and together they shuffle toward the door. 

Castiel focuses on Dean's back as he pulls Sam along. Sees flashes behind his eyes of an exposed throat and too many teeth. A moment that could have lost him everything; his steps falter. Gabriel squeezes his arm, as though he can read Castiel's distress in the rhythm of his breath. Maybe he can. 

_You will not have him._

Castiel straightens his spine, and they head for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof. Happy Saturday. This chapter is almost twice as long as the next-longest so far. I've never written a fight scene before, and honestly wasn't sure I'd be able to do it well, but I surprisingly don't hate this. It was a lot of fun to write. 
> 
> The next chapter might be a direct sequel to this scene, I haven't decided yet. I'm going to go have some dinner and think about it, and we'll discover together what comes out of my head next :)


	9. I is for Iconoclast (Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- God's A+ parenting skills. 
> 
> This slides straight out of "H is for Hunt." If you skipped that one, you can uncover your eyes now. The boys are patching themselves up after the fight, but heads are no longer rolling.

They aren't going to make it home. 

They're hours out yet, and Castiel can feel worry roll off Dean in waves. Sam and Gabriel are piled together in the back seat of the Impala. Though they'd dressed their wounds as well as possible with the first-aid kit from the trunk, it wasn't enough. Sam needs stitches. Gabriel may as well; until they find somewhere to bed down for the night and can remove the hastily-applied gauze, they won't know for sure. Taking down six Leviathan and an onslaught of drugged human assailants had drained the strength of both angels, and Gabriel's grace is currently little more help than Castiel's. 

Dean just drives, gaze fixed resolutely to the road. 

Castiel closes his eyes and tries not to think.

Around the two hour mark, he hears Dean mutter "Screw it," and they take the next exit off the highway. A one-stoplight town in middle America. _Three churches, two bars, and one gas station_ , as Dean would say. 

There's only one motel. It's attached to a truck stop. 

Dean pulls in at the furthest, dimmest end of the parking lot. Turns the rearview mirror to check his face, and frowns. He's still covered in blood. He turns his head enough to address Sam. 

"Hey, that dirty shirt still back there from the other day?" 

With a pained expression, Sam pitches forward enough to rummage around the footwell. Comes up with a ratty, oil-stained green tee. Tosses it at Dean. 

Dean peels his current shirt off, grabs a bottle of water from somewhere near Castiel's feet. He dampens a slightly less gory corner and proceeds to scrub at his face in the mirror. Satisfied, he pulls the new shirt over his head. 

Dirty it may be, but oil stains invite fewer questions than blood spatter. 

He looks down and sighs. Nothing he can do about the jeans. They're dark enough blue that he might be able to get away with it. 

"Stay here," he says, and slides out of the car. 

Castiel watches his form retreat into the night. Sees him make it to the tiny motel office, pull open the door, and vanish inside. 

_Bodies strewn over the floor in garish poses. Sam slumped against the wall. Humans rushing at him, glassy-eyed and unseeing._

There's a church across the street from the motel. The steeple is topped by a cross, lit by floodlights that wash out the starry sky around it. Castiel studies it for a few moments before looking away. 

A thump on the roof of the car jolts him from his daze. Dean has returned, and he dangles room keys outside the window. Castiel exits the car and takes one of them, along with the Impala key. 

"Got us a couple of rooms. Cas, grab the weapons from the trunk. Gotta get these two indoors." 

Castiel retrieves the bag of weapons and slings it over his shoulder. Dean has already helped Gabriel out to lean against the side of the car, and steadies Sam as he gains his feet. Castiel offers an arm to Gabriel, and the Dean steers the four of them to a pair of rooms at the far corner of the first floor. 

The air in the room they enter is stale, with an undercurrent of mildew. Dean deposits Sam as gently as possible in a rickety chair near the window, and strides toward the bathroom. Castiel and Gabriel sit on the end of the bed. Gabriel's face is still drawn and pale, but he manages the ghost of a smile at Sam. 

A pile of towels lands at Castiel's feet. Dean crouches to paw through the weapons bag, eventually bringing out the first-aid kit and a hip flask. He glances at Gabriel, but gets waved off. 

"Archangel, remember? I'll live. Check on Sammy first."

As Dean grabs a towel and moves to Sam, Castiel pushes at Gabriel's shoulders, forcing him to lean back on his palms. He hisses as Castiel rucks up his shredded shirt to expose the gashes across his stomach. Slowly, cautiously, he peels back the gauze. Mercifully, the wounds appear to be closing rapidly. What would, hours before, have been mortal injuries on a lesser being are now merely deep cuts. Perhaps Gabriel's grace will recover faster than they'd expected. 

Castiel is far less certain about his own tattered power. 

_A Leviathan straddles Dean, pinning him to the cold cement floor. Snarling fangs inches from his throat. Sam down, Gabriel occupied, no time to think -_

He hears a hiss. Dean finishes stitching a nasty slash over Sam's left hip, and Sam swigs from the flask as he clenches his eyes shut. Cranes his head to examine the stitches as Dean stands and moves to clean up. 

"Well," Sam starts, then frowns. "That could've gone better. You said Garth was going to take care of the survivors?"

Dean runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, he'll deal with it. Lots of bodies to burn. I wouldn't be surprised if they just evac and then torch the place, but whatever. He says he has it handled, I believe him." He pauses, snorts. "I'm too tired not to believe him." 

Resigned, Sam nods agreement. "Thanks for the patch job. Gabe, you good?" 

Gabriel smiles and winks at him. "You know I am, darlin'."

Sam laughs, and a fraction of the tension disappates. He stands, wincing only a little, and shuffles the few feet to the bed, where he collapses onto the mattress beside Gabriel. Dean chuckles. "All right. Since you've kindly decided not to die on us, I think we'll leave you two girls alone for the night." He kneels at the weapons bag again, grabs a pair of guns and his machete, then stands. He turns to Castiel. "C'mon, Cas. There's a bed with my name on it, and I wanna scrub about six layers of crap off my skin before I get in it."

Sam and Gabriel bid them goodnight, and they exit the room. Castiel can see the tightness around Dean's eyes as they go. Their room is right next door. He still isn't sure it's close enough for Dean, but Dean trusts Gabriel with Sam's life almost as much as he trusts Castiel. 

They close the door behind them, and in the dark hush before they can flip the lights on, Castiel pulls Dean into a rough embrace. He begins to shake. Dean, initially startled, wraps his arms around him and rubs circles into his back. Castiel lifts his head from Dean's shoulder, and is suprised to find his face wet with tears. 

"Hey," Dean soothes, pulling back to cup Cas's face in his hands. "It's ok. I know. We made it through, we're ok." He swipes thumbs over Castiel's cheeks, rubbing away the moisture. Meets luminous blue eyes before tilting forward to kiss him softly, once, twice. The tears are gone as quickly as they started, and Castiel closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Dean's. 

"Could we not do that again for a while, please?" Castiel asks, and Dean huffs. "In our line of work? No promises." He presses another brief kiss to Castiel's mouth, then pulls back. "I was serious about that shower. I have no idea what half this goo is, and I don't think I wanna know. Wanna climb in with me?" 

Castiel shakes his head. "Take your shower. I require a few moments to collect myself." 

Dean nods understanding. "Ok. Holler if you need me, I won't be far." He moves away into the room, and the bathroom door clicks shut behind him. 

He still hasn't turned on the lights. A soft glow washes through the front window of the room. Castiel drifts over, gazes out. The source is the steeple across the street, with its beaconlike cross. 

_Leviathan wearing the faces of their victims._

Castiel forgets to breathe. 

_Innocent humans transformed into drones. Cannon fodder. Collateral damage._

He stares unblinking at the cross. When he shifts his eyes slightly, he can see the afterimage of the bright figure, ghostly across his retinas. Something in him is crumbling. As though it were built atop shifting sands, where before he had thought only granite existed. He is surprised, and then bemused at his surprise. The feeling is startling in its intensity, but it is hardly novel. 

He closes his eyes against the glow, remembers to breathe. Hears the patter of water from the bathroom where Dean showers. Dean, his beautiful and righteous man. Alive and whole. Because of him. 

His roiling emotions settle. He steels his resolve, opens his eyes. 

_If he cannot look to You_ , he thinks at the cross, _then I will give what You will not_.

Across the street, the floodlight flickers and dies away, until only the stars remain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy howdy look at me go. Continuity between chapters. Who'd'a thunk. 
> 
> It won't last. As of next chapter we're back to merrily skipping around the timeline, and in fairly short order will get back to shippy stuff.


	10. J is for Jailbreak (Sam/Gabriel, Sam/Lucifer pre-slash)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I'd never leave you behind.

In an echoing chamber lit by a multitude of ceremonial candles, Sam and Dean kneel at Gabriel's feet. He draws an angel blade across each of their palms. Too light to damage delicate nerves or tendons; the cuts are just deep enough to allow crimson to bead along them. Sam watches the blood well and spread. Gabriel, with unceasing intonations in long-dead languages, turns and does the same to the two dormant bodies restrained in straight-backed chairs mere feet away. 

It's time. 

...

"If we're doing this," Dean had muttered, weeks ago, "they'll need vessels." Tension thrummed in his arms, and he pulled his hands through his hair, tapped his fingers against his thighs, cracked his knuckles; he seemed unable to be still. "And as much fun as being a prom dress looked last time, Sam, there's no way we're going down that road again."

Sam had worn the same pale, determined expression for days. Gabriel stood by his side, pressed into each other in one long line. Sam sighed and lifted his gaze. "Well, we can't just grab some poor people off the street. 'Congratulations, you've been volunteered as housing for two of the most powerful beings in Creation!' " He shook his head. "Besides, they'd burn out anyway. I don't think anyone we could find would do much better than Nick did, willing or not." 

Gabriel leaned back on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. He concentrated silently, eyes closed, for several long seconds. Then his expression shifted, eyebrows lifting, and he looked back to Sam and Dean. A small smirk had begun to form along his lips. 

"Actually," he said, and his smirk had grown into a grin, "I might be able to call in a favor."

...

Sam remains on his knees, head bowed, as he reaches to clasp bleeding palms to the hands of the vessel in front of him. The body's hands are warm, and he can feel the faint pulse points at the wrists. Dean had asked why they weren't simply dead, and Gabriel had rolled his eyes. 

"Unlike demons, angels don't do well hanging out in corpses. Think of it like this: the lights are on, but nobody's home." 

...

"Protector. Victor. Opposition of darkness." Gabriel dipped the rough bristles of the brush into a dish of boar's blood. He chanted as he painted sigils in an arc in front of him. Sam and Dean hung back and observed. He'd warned them not to draw attention. "He owes me one, but he can be... acquisitive." Gabriel had glanced at the floor, furtive. "I just don't want him taking too much of an interest in you two, that's all." 

He dipped his fingers into the blood and drew streaks over his forehead, along his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, his chin. "I summon you. I beseech you. Verethragna, god of force and victory." He paused. Waited. 

Huffed out a sigh and pursed his lips. "C'mon, Bahram, get your ass down here already. I'm calling in my favor."

A man shimmered into existence atop the sigils. A small smile played over his lips as he adjusted the cuffs of a shimmering gold, closely tailored suit. Sam noticed the wink of silver as he fidgeted. Cufflinks in the form of minute spears. Sam knew without questioning that they were sharp enough to cut. 

"Gabriel, my friend. So long since we had the pleasure." The man extended his hand to Gabriel, but Gabriel waved it aside. 

"Keep the formality, Bahram. The last time you saw me you threatened to skewer me." Gabriel was smiling, but there was a hard glint in his eyes that Sam knew well.

Bahram laughed. "That makes us practically family, does it not? From what I know of your family, anyway." He spread his hands in mock surrender. "But I assume you didn't call me here just for pleasantries. I'm a busy man, Gabriel, and you know I dislike being in anyone's debt. What would you have of me?" 

Gabriel crossed his arms. "Michael's last vessel. I know it fell into your care when he departed. I want it."

The god Bahram studied Gabriel through narrowed eyes. "And why might you need such a thing? That man's bones have been moldering away for two millennia. What use could he be to you now?" 

Sam could see Gabriel losing his patience. "Listen, do I annoy you with invasive personal questions? I'm asking for him, and you owe me. Give me this and we're even. You never have to see my beautiful face again, and we can go back to hating each other from a distance."

The man's broad features had hardened, all pretense of amity gone. "As you wish, Messenger." The air near Gabriel's feet had shimmered again, and a small pile of ancient bone fragments had appeared. Bahram stepped away from Gabriel, adjusting his collar. 

"Oh, and Gabriel?"

Gabriel met his eyes.

"Don't keep in touch."

...

Gabriel twists dark thread around Sam's hands, tying them to the vessel's own. Weaves it among fingers: over, under, over again. Knots the ends thrice. Ladles honey, thickly fragrant with flowers and perfume and heady magic, to run over their hands and complete the binding. 

Beeswax and honey and clay from the Nile. Given with reverence to preserve the bodies of the dead into their immortal afterlife. 

Herbs for protection, for healing, for grounding. 

Gabriel's grace, his own Holy Being, mixed throughout. 

Turning to Dean, knelt at the feet of Michael's vessel, he performs the ritual again. 

...

They hadn't been allowed to see the bodies for several days once Gabriel had begun to work on them. 

"Trust me," he'd said, "it's not something you want to watch. And it's finicky, rebuilding a vessel from the ground up. One wrong move and the whole thing can go bust. I'll let you know once I'm through the worst of it." 

He'd retired to his workroom, and that was the last Sam saw of him for three days.

On the fourth day, he couldn't take it any more. Strung-out and haunted, plagued by whispers at the edge of his hearing, he knocked on the door. Had felt a small, indescribable relief when Gabriel had called out for him to enter. 

Sam stumbled, would've tripped, caught himself on the wall. Gabriel perched on a bench between two bodies, laid out atop long tables. One of them was a tall man, dark and leanly muscled - Michael's former vessel, Sam guessed. 

The other table held Nick. Sam stared. 

It was almost as though he'd been frozen in time, back before he'd ever become a vessel at all. Before the strain of containing an archangel's grace had burned through flesh and soul. It was odd, Sam realized - he'd never known this as anything other than Lucifer's form. Never met its original inhabitant. Almost certainly never would. 

Gabriel contemplated the other vessel, chin on the heel of his hand. "Last time this one saw the light of day was shortly before the birth of Christ. I wonder what he'd think of the world now." Gabriel stood, brushed his hands together. "Well, that's basically that. They'll need a bit of blood from you and Deano - not much, few drops should be fine - but I'd say they're all set." 

He'd turned to Sam, still staring down at Nick's body, and rested a hand on his shoulder. 

"Just a little longer, Sammy. It's going to work."

...

The new moon is somewhere high above them. Even through ceilings and walls, through feet of concrete, Sam thinks he can feel it. Shadowed and lonely and beckoning new beginnings. 

He looks over at Gabriel, now spreading the last of the honey in a large oval on the floor between Sam and Dean. They'd talked about this. Gabriel, while almost certain he could retrieve his brothers, was less sure of what the effect of the spell would be on Adam. With the Cage weakening by the day, they think - hope - that his ties to Michael will be enough to carry him through as well. 

Sam had refused to dwell on the alternative. 

He can hear Dean shifting beside him as Gabriel completes his preparations. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see his brother studying his hands, pointedly not looking at the man to whom he is bound. Sam raises his gaze to study Nick's face. The vessel looks like he's sleeping; it's an expression too slack to be called peaceful.

A crackle of power runs through the room, and the hair along his arms stands on end. Gabriel's murmured intonations build in volume and in fervor. The power grows, and builds, and the electricity in the air seems to flow outward from Gabriel. It is a nearly-tangible manifestation of his will. Sam thinks it might inhabit him, colonize his very cells, or perhaps devour him whole. Gabriel stands behind them, and Sam knows without looking that he glows with it. That he is radiant. That he is glorious. 

Sam focuses on it, as Gabriel had told him to do. Pulls with his mind and his soul and his will, pulls that power down around him, and forces it across bloody palms. Pushes as hard as he can at the boundary where he and Nick's body make contact. 

They are going to be swallowed up, they are going to be destroyed. This is ruination, this is - 

No, Sam thinks. This is reclamation. This is restoration.

_Come back to me_ , his words reverberate in his mind, imploring. _I'm here, I'm waiting. Come back._

The ground shakes. Sound without sound, movement without movement. A crack of thunder as the veil between what is and what might be rends around them. 

The dam bursts. He feels, for one moment, an awful pressure in his head, and then a displacement of air and his eardrums pop. He thinks he might be bleeding from one ear, but the thought is hazy and far away. Hears a cry from beside him, and bodies moving rapidly. Dimly registers that the room contains six people, where before there had been five. 

And - 

Piercing blue eyes meet his own. Like looking down an impossible well, a vast and icy chasm. But the spark, the _spark_ of him - Sam knows, and tears fall as he silently holds the gaze of the angel in front of him. As though from a great distance, he hears his own name. 

Lucifer draws a breath, and his voice is a cracked whisper. "You came for us."

Sam smiles through the tears. 

"Welcome home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You did it, Sam. You got them out. Now please take a nap, you deserve it. 
> 
> I have to tell you, this fic is the first time I've ever written - well, anything. Is it obvious? I feel like it's obvious. But this is in my head, and it wouldn't leave me alone until I let it out. I just hope you guys are enjoying reading it half as much as I'm enjoying writing it.


	11. K is for Kinship (Michael & Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- A house is not built from a single brick, but the most important is always the first.

When Michael finally finds Lucifer, he's on the roof. He leans back on his hands, dangles his legs over the side to drum his heels arrhythmically against the stone walls. His gaze is fixed upward. The land spreads flat around them, sprawling and silent in every direction, and the only light is the infinite spill of stars overhead. 

Michael appears beside him in a flutter of wings. He closes the distance between them in a handful of hesitant steps, and settles himself next to his brother. Lucifer is stony beside him, and acknowledges him not at all. 

The air temperature drops precipitously around them, however, and frost creeps along the stone. So at least he's been noticed. 

The older archangel is quiet for several long minutes, eyes trained to the horizon. The silence thickens between them. At last Michael takes a deep breath. 

"Good evening, brother." 

Lucifer barely moves. "Michael."

"I wanted," Michael begins, then pauses. So difficult to make himself understood this way, to do this with flesh and air and space between them. He tries again. "How are you?"

Lucifer ceases the tapping of his heels. He is utterly motionless, now. "Michael. Go away." 

Michael sighs. He is distantly surprised that his hands have begun to fidget without his notice, a nervous gesture he thinks he must have acquired from Adam. He looks away. "I heard you quarrelling with Sam. I merely wished to inquire after your well-being."

A bark of laughter escapes Lucifer, brief and bitter. The echoes bounce faintly back to them before dying away. "You mean you came to see if I was up to anything. Well, unless Dad made stargazing a smiting offense while I was locked away, sorry to disappoint."

A pang of hurt flashes through Michael. "No, that is not..." He pinches the bridge of his nose, frustration evident across his face. "I truly only wanted to see that you are well. Won't you talk to me a little?" Lucifer pulls his knees to his chest. He turns his back almost completely to his brother. Michael considers, for a moment, that he could reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. He discards the thought with regret. Ice spreads out across the rooftop in every direction from Lucifer, and Michael thinks offhandedly that no being has ever looked _less_ like they wish to be touched. 

Small shivers run through him, and Michael registers vaguely that his vessel must be feeling the cold. Yet another point of frustration and confusion, in a day which had already been full of them. He ignores them. "Lucifer. I know I have done nothing to earn it, but I... I miss your company. I miss you. And I wish I knew what to say." He pauses again, overwhelmed. Takes a deep breath and reaches for the sensation that has been growing inside him for months. 

He thinks, perhaps, it may be humility. Nothing else will be a suitable bridge on which to cross this chasm. 

"I am sorry. I was wrong."

Lucifer shudders, face buried in his knees, but says nothing. 

"I hurt you, and I abandoned you, and it was wrong of me." Michael curls in on himself, crosses his arms over his stomach. The back of his neck feels terribly exposed. As though at any moment an axe might fall. 

"I am not asking you for your forgiveness. I know we may never again be brothers in anything but name." Michael looks up, at the line of Lucifer's spine, his hunched shoulders. "But you deserve an apology, Heylel. Being here with you and the others has shown me that." 

Michael stands. It is not enough. Perhaps it never will be. 

"Pleasant evening to you, brother." Two steps away, and Michael vanished as he had appeared. 

Lucifer remains, statuesque, on the rooftop. Slowly, so slowly as to almost be imperceptible, the frost around him begins to thaw. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the chapter I set out to write, but I was in a weird headspace tonight, and this is the only thing that would come out. 
> 
> Your siblings can inflict some uniquely awful hurt on you, and I say this from personal experience. If you're going through that: you're not alone. Your family doesn't get a free pass to cause you pain just because you're related. When, whether, and how you decide to start healing those wounds is up to you. This internet stranger loves you, whatever you choose <3


	12. L is for Love: An Interlude (All / Relationships)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I sing the body electric. 
> 
> Content advisory: this one is sexy. All the actual mature content is implied/happens offscreen, but if sexiness is not what you're here for, I can respect that. This chapter may also be skipped without missing anything in the way of plot.

\---------------------------

"Come _on_ , Sammy." Gabriel tugs him by the wrist, drags him into their motel room. Gabriel's good humor is infectious. Sam laughs and stumbles, and Gabriel takes advantage of the off-balance moment. In one fluid motion, he closes the door and pushes Sam back up against it. It shudders at the impact. 

"Hey now," Sam chuckles. "The walls in this place are thin, remember? Dean will hear us, and then he'll bitch." 

Gabriel looks at him with unrepentant glee. "Good. Maybe he'll learn something." His hands are _everywhere_ , pulling at Sam's shirt, running through his hair to tug his head down for a kiss. "Gonna climb you like a tree, Sam-a-lam." He giggles, giddy. "Gonna ride you like a bike."

"You," Sam says affectionately, "are ridiculous." He makes a halfhearted attempt to get Gabriel to stop pawing at him long enough to lock the door, at least, but there are hands at his waist and Gabriel pulls him across the room. There's an armchair in the corner where Sam swears no chair existed a moment ago, and he is unceremoniously pushed into it. Finds himself with a lapful of squirming, handsy archangel. 

Sam levels a glare at him, but a corner of his mouth twitches upward. "Nothing reminds me of who I'm sleeping with like being thrown around by someone half my size." Gabriel cackles. Sam tilts forward and yanks the collar of his shirt open. He nips at the base of Gabriel's throat, just hard enough to bruise if Gabriel lets it - and he _will_ let it, Sam knows. Gabriel tugs at Sam's belt, but the angle makes it difficult, and Sam can feel his impatience. 

Sam smirks to himself. Counts in his head: three, two, one - 

"Oh, for - " Gabriel breaks off. Rolls his eyes and snaps. Their clothes vanish, and he grins. "Much better." 

Sam grabs both of Gabriel's hands in one of his, rakes nails with the other lightly down Gabriel's spine. The angel shivers and leans forward into a deep kiss. He meets Sam's eyes from inches away, his own gaze half-lidded. "The things you do to me," he breathes out, voice unsteady. Sam clasps a hand to the back of his neck, pulls him close. 

"You know you love me," Sam sings, teasing, into the air between them. 

"You're right," Gabriel says. "I do."

"And I love you," Sam replies, and Gabriel kisses the smile off him.

\---------------------------

"Pick me up." Adam's eyes gleam mischief. Michael's lips curve and his hands curl around and under. He supports Adam's legs until he loops them around Michael's waist, clasps arms around Michael's shoulders. He holds him effortlessly, and Adam chases his mouth to claim kisses, quick and joyful. They swing through the air - falling? flying? Adam can't be sure - and in the next moment Michael is just _there_ underneath him, leaning back across their bed. 

Michael pushes back on his hips, gentle but insistent, until Adam is straddled over strong thighs. He ghosts fingertips over Michael's stomach, just beneath the hem of his shirt, then leans back to tug it up and off. The candlelight casts his face in stark highlight - temple, cheekbones, lips, jaw - and Adam bends forward to kiss along each bright line. Michael sighs, warm breath at Adam's ear. 

"Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?" Adam huffs quiet laughter, can feel the curve of Michael's smile. "You," he murmurs softly, trailing lips down Michael's neck, "are a _sap_." Michael skims palms up along his arms, coming to rest at the nape of his neck. 

Adam presses a kiss to his collarbone, but Michael is undeterred. "How beautiful you are and how pleasing, my love, with your delights." He gently tugs at Adam's hair, raises his head to whisper over his lips. "My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand." Adam presses them together in a slow, searing kiss, and responds. "His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely." Gently nips at Michael's lower lip. 

The world is upended. Adam finds himself on his back, Michael leaning on one arm, the other hand working the buttons of his shirt free one by one. He settles his weight over Adam. Adam can see, dimly, a shifting outline of refracted light in the air behind him. _Wings_ , he realizes, and shivers. 

Michael tips forward and lightly, lightly places a kiss over Adam's heart. "I belong to my beloved," he whispers, "and his desire is for me." He looks up, eyes gone dark and liquid, and Adam's pulse skips a beat. 

"Place me like a seal over your heart." 

Adam reaches for him, pulls him down to press them closely together, and then there is only breath and candlelight.

\---------------------------

Lucifer is tucked into his side, head on Sam's chest, listening to his heartbeat. They had flung shirts and socks in a pile somewhere on the floor before climbing into bed together, and Lucifer's skin is cool against his. Sam runs a hand slowly over Lucifer's right arm, up to his shoulder, down to his elbow, back again. 

"Is that what you want tonight?" Sam asks. His angel is mostly accepting of physical affection. He frequently desires to be held and kissed and petted, especially when they are alone. But for all that he has become accustomed to his vessel, his presence inside it is shard-edged and otherworldly; he often feels ill-fitted in the shape he wears. Which is to say - _that_ isn't always what he wants. 

Lucifer hums to himself, then cuddles closer. "I... don't know. Can we try?" Sam rolls onto his side, shifting until they are face to face. Sam smooths a hand through his hair, and Lucifer's eyes drift closed. "Of course," Sam says, and drops a tender kiss onto his brow. 

Sam pushes at his shoulder, carefully, encourages Lucifer to face the other way. Wraps himself around him, one arm under his head. With the other, he glides fingertips steadily over Lucifer's skin. He starts at his right shoulder, then down across his chest, the lightly quivering muscles of his abs, across his stomach to his left hip, and then back up over his heart to his left shoulder. Across his collarbone, and repeat. Down. Over. Up. Across. 

Drawing him into himself, touch by touch, inch by inch of skin.

"Sam," Lucifer sighs out. 

The circuit gradually widens. Down the undersides of his arms, the sensitive pads of his fingers, and back up over his wrists, his elbows. Around to the outside of his ribs, and he giggles. Sam smiles against the back of his neck. 

Ticklishness. It's progress. 

He moves on. Drags fingers down over his hips, the top of his thighs, circling around above the knee and back up along the outside of his leg. Sam lets his nails drag and catch on the denim, lets them pull, just a little. Lucifer writhes against him, digs his hands into Sam's arm under his head. 

"Breathe, Luce." Sam presses kisses into the back of his neck. "Remember to breathe."

Sam drags nails over his thighs again, down the outside, over, back up along his inseam. He rolls his hips once, lazily, against the body in front of him. Lucifer's breath stutters and he pushes back against him, turns his head to nip at Sam's arm, and Sam grins. Hooks his thumb into the waistband of Lucifer's jeans. 

"Off?" Sam asks, tugging at them lightly. 

"Off," Lucifer agrees. 

The jeans meet their inevitable fate, and join the rest of their clothes on the floor. 

\---------------------------

Lucifer curls around Gabriel, hands twisted in hands, legs twined together. To all appearances, they've been asleep for hours. Sam had watched them gravitate closer and closer as the night wore on, Gabriel leaning into Lucifer as he read, Lucifer pitching an arm around Gabriel's shoulders while he poked at Sam's laptop. Finally, they had retired to bed, tangled themselves around each other, and closed their eyes. Sam watches them from his desk, book forgotten. 

They each wear an expression of deep contentment. Sam knows they're not asleep, not exactly. He'd asked Gabriel about it once, when they were in bed together, Gabriel laying across his chest like a contented cat. 

"Well," he mulled, "there isn't really a human equivalent. We're bonding, kind of."

"Bonding?" Sam raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Sure," Gabriel replied. "The physical stuff is nice, and intimacy is intimacy, but angels don't have bodies by default. Most of us aren't used to it." He shrugged. "Luci certainly isn't. We're energy, more thought than form, and when we're at home we commune by sharing grace."

Sam reached down to pet Gabriel's hair, and the angel pushed his head gladly into his hand. "What's that like?"

"It's like... I dunno. Like the place where the river meets the sea. Like overlapping different colors of light to make a new hue. We're still ourselves, but we also become each other, for a while. And also something entirely separate." His hands wove through the air, tracing the outline of a concept he struggled to put into words. "It's a way to share perspective, to exchange feelings. And it's not an activity you take up with just anyone." 

He sighed. "It's hard to do when you're stuck in a vessel. Not impossible. Just hard." He glanced at Sam from the corners of his eyes. "Either way, he's been alone for a long, long time."

Sam leaned up on an elbow, drew Gabriel up next to him. He pulled the angel into a one-armed hug and burrowed his face into his neck. "I'm glad he has you," he said. 

Gabriel hummed softly. "I'm glad I have both of you."

Sam shakes the memory away with a smile. On the bed, Lucifer wraps his arms more tightly around Gabriel. Sam leaves them with each other, and returns to his book. 

\---------------------------

Dean returns from the shower, hair wet and towel around his waist, and finds Cas perched on the side of the bed. 

"Hey, you." Dean cocks a sideways grin at the angel. "When did you get back?"

"Dean." Castiel's eyes sparkle. He stands. "I just returned. I wanted to see you." He crosses the floor in three long paces. Pulls Dean into a kiss without breaking stride, one arm around his shoulders, the other hand grabbing the towel to haul him forward. 

Warmth blossoms in Dean's chest. He presses against Castiel, molds himself to the front of his angel. Kicks a foot out behind him, nudges the door closed. "Hey, hey. Easy, Cas." He chuckles against his lips. "I missed you too." 

Castiel glides backwards, tugs Dean inexorably toward the bed. Turning, he catches Dean around the waist and sends him sprawling onto his back. He climbs over him, grasps his wrists to push his arms back over his head. 

Dean smirks up at him, tries playfully to pull away. Castiel pursues him, slots their mouths together, determined, insistent. They break apart only to acknowledge an inconvenient reality: Castiel might not need to breathe, but Dean does.

Cas drops his head to kiss the pulse point in Dean's throat. "I apologize. I dislike being away for so long." 

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Won't argue with that. On the other hand, I can't complain about the reunion."

"Indeed."

He finally allows Dean the use of his hands, and he uses the freedom to push Castiel back and help him shed his coat. Dean grabs his tie and pulls them roughly together into a passionate kiss. 

They hover together, happy to be sharing the same air again, inches apart. Castiel cocks his head and smiles. 

"It is good to be home."

Falling, they lose themselves in each other, and the walls tremble with it.

...

Several minutes later, there is a banging on the door.

"Dudes, some of us are trying to sleep. I'm happy for you but could you maybe _keep it down_?"

Dean drops his head to Castiel's chest, and laughs and laughs.

\---------------------------

The lights dim. Opening credits play. 

"What are you, made entirely of bones? So _pointy_. Shift over, I need space." Gabriel pouts up at Lucifer from the end of the couch. Lucifer leans back against Sam's chest, rolls his eyes and stretches his legs out toward Gabriel.

"Demanding. Come here." He holds his arms open, and Gabriel crawls along the length of his body to drape himself across Sam and Lucifer. Sam dutifully pokes at him until he rearranges himself into a tangle of limbs that doesn't look comfortable, strictly speaking, but Gabriel and Lucifer both seem content enough. 

"Guys, chill out. The movie is starting." Sam is squished against the arm of the couch. He is very effectively trapped under two cuddling archangels. Sam thinks it's perfect. It had taken all day, but both had been coaxed and petted and cajoled until they agreed to settle down for an evening together. A sense of peace washes over him. 

Twenty minutes in, he notices that Lucifer's breathing has slowed, his eyes fallen shut. Sam rakes fingers through his hair, and he purrs in response. Lucifer tilts his head back, eyes still closed, and Sam laughs softly and brushes lips to his. 

Looks up to see Gabriel watching them, a small smile on his face, light from the screen reflected in his eyes. 

Gabriel glides up Lucifer's body, coming to rest with his chin on his shoulder. Tips his head back until he can bat his eyelashes at Sam. "Luci gets kisses. What about me?" Sam obliges. Feeling attention shift away from him, Lucifer whines. 

Sam leans back, huffs out amusement. "Neediest creatures on Earth." Gabriel grins at him, and twists to kiss Lucifer instead. Lucifer melts into it. The moment stretches between them, and the kiss deepens. 

Without breaking it, Gabriel makes eye contact with Sam. Winks at him. 

He pulls away, and Lucifer makes a halfhearted attempt to follow, but Sam runs palms up his arms and pulls him carefully back to lean against him. He fidgets, but settles easily into Sam's grip, and Sam breathes a quiet sigh of relief. 

(Once, in a moment of unthinking enthusiasm, Gabriel had pinned Lucifer's wrists without warning. He was flung bodily across the room before he could blink. Lucifer had paled, then vanished for several hours, and it had required a day to calm him fully once he returned. Since then, there is an understanding between them: they do not attempt to restrain him, and they are more careful now.)

Gabriel drags kisses down Lucifer's neck, along his collarbone. Runs clever hands under his shirt, and Lucifer tips his head back in bliss. Gabriel is whispering a steady stream of _something_ in a language Sam can't follow, but Lucifer's breath hitches. Sam traces hands along his arms until he can twine their fingers together, folds their hands over Lucifer's chest. 

Gabriel sits back on his heels, wiggles eyebrows suggestively. "Rain check on the movie?" 

Sam chuckles, Lucifer nods, and Gabriel reaches forward to take their hands. 

The couch is abruptly empty. The movie plays to an empty room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't think Michael regularly woos the pants right off Adam with the Song of Songs, then boyyyyy do I have news for you


	13. M is for Morningstar (Sam/Lucifer/Gabriel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Lucifer: no longer the herald of the dawn.

Lucifer is startled awake by a shift in the air, arms and legs still wrapped tightly around Sam. A jarring moment of reentry to consciousness, and in a flash he runs through his mental checklist - 

( _Sam_  
 _warm_  
 _home_  
 _not in pain_  
 _safe_ )

\- and orients himself to find Gabriel staring at him from six inches away, grinning broadly. 

"Nnnnooooope," he groans, burying his face in Sam's shoulder. "I don't care, whatever it is. 's too early for it."

Gabriel laughs. "Nah, Luci, up and at 'em! It's a new day!" He rises from where he'd crouched next to the bed and switches on the desk lamp. Sam yawns and raises his head, scrubbing the back of one hand across his eyes. Gabriel picks up a steaming mug and waves it at him. "Look, because I'm obviously terrific and I love you, I made you coffee. You wouldn't turn down coffee made with love, would you?" 

Lucifer yanks the pillow over his head, muttering imprecations, and burrows further under his pile of blankets.

The coffee does smell nice, though. 

"If he doesn't want it," Lucifer hears through the pillow, "can I have it?" He feels Sam tilt away to reach for the coffee, and tightens the grip ( _ **my** grip_, he reminds himself, _**my** hands, my arms, my body. Mine_). Gabriel must take pity and hand it to him, because a moment later he resettles himself against Lucifer. 

The bed dips, and then Gabriel is behind him. He reclines against the headboard, presses himself close to Lucifer. 

Lucifer smiles. 

"Luce, my arm is asleep. Can I have it back, please?" Sam's voice is tinged with amusement. "Come out from under there. I'll pet you, and you can drink the coffee before it gets cold." 

He reluctantly divests himself of both Sam's arm and the pillow. Sam scooches further back to prop himself up, and pulls Lucifer along with him. He hands one mug to Lucifer ( _warm_ ) and leans down to pull the blankets, since dislodged, back over the angel, until he is once again nearly invisible under the pile. 

Sam sips his coffee and runs fingertips lightly through Lucifer's hair. Looks over at Gabriel. "So, what, plans for the day?"

Gabriel nods enthusiastically. "Castiel called. Thinks they've got a pair of rogue reapers out in Tulsa. Mikey and Adam are heading out there to help them check it out." He smirks. "Their rooms are going to be unguarded all day. I feel a creative streak coming on."

( _safe_ , he reminds himself,   
_I'm here_  
 _they're here_  
 _even when they leave they come back_ )

Sam snorts. "Uh huh. I don't want to know. Just leave the place standing, ok? And if they ask, I'm denying all knowledge." 

Gabriel wiggles gleefully. "I took that as a given." 

Sam glances down at Lucifer. "What about you? Gonna get out of bed sometime before the next ice age?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Depends. Will you stay in it with me?" He slides one hand across Sam's waist, tugging him closer. Sam laughs. "You are such a heat leech. Finish your coffee." 

Lucifer drains the last of the coffee, feeling the heat pool down the throat ( _my throat, my stomach, my body with heart, lungs, veins, why is this so difficult_ ). Gabriel grabs the mug from him and clambers off the bed. 

"All right, well, I have a date with Dean's mattress and a literal _ton_ of stick-on googly eyes." Gabriel's eyes gleam with good-natured menace. He vanishes, and Lucifer is alone 

( _not alone not alone he isn't gone just down the hall_ ) 

with Sam. 

Sam curls around him, and Lucifer sighs. Presses as close as he can into Sam's embrace. 

( _I'm home. With Sam. Home. With Sam._ )

Hands comb through his hair, soothing. "Hey you. You're quiet. Still waking up?" Sam gazes down at him curiously. 

Lucifer presses his face into Sam's chest and clings. After a moment, he raises his eyes just enough to peer back at Sam. 

Something of his thoughts must show on his face, because Sam tilts his head upward and kisses him softly. "Luce. Hey. We can stay in bed for a while if you want." Lucifer nods mutely. Sam pulls the blankets more closely around them, and resumes the gentle scratching of his scalp. "Can I help?"

He is silent for several long moments, knows that Sam will accept silence as an answer without question if it is all he has to give. "You are," he finally says, and snuggles against him. 

He runs through the checklist again, and again, and again - 

( _Sam_  
 _warm_  
 _home_  
 _not in pain_  
 _safe_ )

\- and as he settles back into uneasy sleep, he adds: 

_loved?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the timeline, this happens just a couple of months after "J is for Jailbreak," when their relationship is still pretty new. 
> 
> (Please note that, while ancient celestial beings can work through their eons-old trauma with the power of narrative alone, that is super inadvisable IRL and the rest of us need to go to therapy.)


	14. N is for Necromancy (Adam/Michael, Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- On resurrection; or, bonds forged beyond the grave.

Upon turning over the final spade of loose, rocky earth, Dean's first thought is: 

_Gonna need more salt_

They'd been digging for hours. Michael and Castiel had offered to speed the process, simply will the soil out of existence, but Dean and Adam had been in rare agreement. "It's not... respectful," Dean had said, shaking his head. Adam had met his eyes, nodded once. "These were human lives. We do this the human way." The angels had shared similar expressions of quiet confusion, but the brothers held to their decision.

After his fiftieth pound of dirt, Dean's aching back had almost persuaded him otherwise, but then he'd hit the first skull. Cold determination had blossomed between vertebrae, and he'd cracked his neck and kept shoveling. 

Now the hole gapes before him, and a sense of muted nausea winds between his ribs. 

In a field presided over only by the crumbling brick structure where they'd lived their final days, two dozen bodies lie in heaps and tangles. Completely absent of coffins, of the usual dignity of interment or of any sense of repose. 

Dean's seen his share of mass graves. _These people weren't buried_ , he thinks. _They were **discarded**_. 

A hand settles on his shoulder, and the pain in his back fades. Castiel contemplates the jumble of bones. 

His only comment is, "I understand now."

Michael steps forward. "Let us hasten these souls to their rest. This is no longer their place." He, too, gazes fixedly into the pit. 

"This world is for the living. The dead have other courses to tread."

Behind him, Adam pulls the lighter from his pocket, and says nothing. 

\---------------------------

Another one-star motel, mainstay of itinerant Americana. 

As the night grinds on into strange and quiet hours, two sets of brothers bid each other good night. Two identical, featureless doors close on two identical, nondescript rooms. 

The smell of smoke lingers in the air behind them, and ashes follow like flurries of snow. 

\---------------------------

In the solitude of their room, Dean shucks his jacket, throws it carelessly across a chair. Pulls his shirt over his head and allows it to fall to the floor. The quiet hush of a wall-mounted fan is the only disturbance of the otherwise stagnant, tepid atmosphere. Dean stands, head rocked back and eyes closed, and tries to focus on anything but the smell of burning bones pervading his clothes. 

_Forty days in Gehenna, antechamber of hell. Forty days with every other miserable unfortunate queued up to replay the failures of their lives. And there were so many failures. They crawled under his last conception of mortal skin, fingers of flame creeping through veins more intimate than any lover. His own inadequacies ate at his body until it burned clean away, until he was left with shape, but no form. A soul with only the recollection of flesh._

Castiel steps toward him. Slots his hand against the fading scar on his left shoulder; a motion so familiar as to be automatic for both of them. 

_Straight through Sheol, that crypt communal of humanity's unwashed masses. Too common for the likes of him. A suite had been prepared in the lowest depths; only the finest for their most distinguished guest. Buried in deepest Tartarus, the most lavishly appointed of dungeons awaits._

Dean's breathing is shallow, pulse racing. Lost down a well of memory. Castiel steps closer, sliding the other hand to cradle Dean's head. 

_Thirty years on the rack. No more nerve endings to feel pain, but somehow it never mattered. Each moment a violation of essence so profound that he would've wept for the blessing of knives and claws. And yet the torture was as nothing compared to the moment he entered Alastair's tutelage as apprentice rather than subject. For ten years, hell's head of staff taught him to pervert respite into new depths of suffering, but he never forgot who he was. Never lost track of whose hands now wielded the whip, and somehow, that was the true punishment._

\---------------------------

Michael slides arms around his waist from behind, chin on his shoulder. "You are distressed." 

Adam shrugs, leans back into him. "It's just... that place. It gave me the creeps." He pulls away, glides a hand along Michael's arm to catch a hand, then let it fall behind him. "I don't feel great. I'm going to lie down." 

He toes his shoes off, flops down on the dingy motel bedding. Stares at the dirty ceiling, counts water stains, holes. Pointedly avoids eye contact with the angel in the room. 

He feels the bed dip. Michael is seated beside him, hands folded neatly in his lap. The silence between them grows, not uncomfortable, but weighty nonetheless. After some minutes, Michael speaks. 

"Adam? Have I... done something wrong?"

Gaze still locked upward, he reaches a hand out to take one of Michael's. Michael's posture eases minutely, but he makes no move to close the distance between them. 

Michael is patient, and he excels at waiting. Adam suspects he could wait forever, if need be. 

"If you had it to do over - if you could undo the whole apocalypse thing," Adam breathes out, voice small and faraway. Unshed tears bead at the corners of his eyes, but his expression is utterly still. "If you could avoid the Cage and the pain and all the death, would you?" 

He turns his head to look at the archangel then, and tears form tracks down his temple. He ignores them. 

"I know I was only a tool and - " he breaks off, shushes Michael, cutting off his interruption, " - no, listen, I know that's not true any more. I _know_. But it was true then. We're together because of - " he falters, takes a deep breath, " - because something went wrong. Because of a _lot_ of somethings went wrong. And I don't regret where we are now."

Adam screws his eyes shut. "But life is for the living, right? If you could do it over, avoid the whole thing, would you? If the only price to pay is that I'd still be in my own heaven, still be dead?"

\---------------------------

"Dean." 

_The memory shifts abruptly. Sparks descend like waterfalls from blown-out lights, and he clenches Ruby's knife in a fist behind his back. Wide, innocent blue eyes stare at him from inches away, and Dean is overwhelmed by a feeling of familiarity. He is almost certain they have never met, but he knows this creature down to his bones, his cells, his DNA. "Who are you?" he grits out, and the face is calm and certain._

_"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition," the man replies, and Dean's heart skips a beat._

His eyes blink open. Castiel's eyes glow piercing blue, and he holds him nearly close enough to kiss. The light fades out, and Cas's eyes return to his usual, more human hue, face scrunched with worry. "Dean. It's a memory. Please tell me you are well." 

He lunges forward into Castiel's arms, pulling deep breaths into his lungs as though recovering from drowning. Castiel grasps him tightly in return, and they stand together in embrace for several long moments. 

"I was - " Dean starts, but Castiel cuts him off. 

"I know. I heard. Your thoughts were... screaming." Castiel pulls back to examine him carefully. "It's in the past, Dean. As terrible as it was, it is over. And you will never see that place again." He leans forward, presses his forehead to Dean's, and Dean closes his eyes. "I promise, Dean. As long as I am with you." 

Dean exhales a long, shuddering breath. "But, Cas, it's inside me now. It's what I have waiting for me. For what I did there. That's where I deserve - "

" **Enough** , Dean Winchester." He opens his eyes to find Castiel staring at him, unblinking, from an inch away. He holds Dean's gaze and says solemnly, "I found your soul in the pit, wrapped it in grace and ascended through fire to return you to the world. I have seen every piece of you, your essence and your body, every atom of you. Every stray thought. Every memory and emotion. _All of you_ , Dean, there is nothing of you I have not held in my hands." Castiel's expression is severe. 

"You are, without question, the most remarkable creature I have ever touched. The beauty of what you are defies description. I have given everything for you, and I would do it again, and again." Dean is trembling under his hands, a leaf caught on a breeze. Castiel pulls him into a lingering kiss. 

They break apart. Castiel whispers against his lips. "You are worthy. You are good. And I love you." 

Castiel pulls him toward the bed, and Dean, overcome and in awe, is helpless but to follow. 

\---------------------------

He feels Michael shift closer to him. 

"No."

He opens his eyes, surprised. He didn't know what he was expecting, but that - that wasn't it. "What, just 'no?' No second thoughts, no mixed feelings, no qualifiers of any kind?"

Michael shakes his head, stretches out on his side next to Adam. He tucks one hand under his head, and they lay parallel on the bed, comfortable inches between them. "No. Knowing what I know now, the only thing I would do differently," Michael smiles, suddenly, crinkling eyes and warmth, "is see your value far sooner." 

Adam stares, at a loss for words. Michael sighs and rolls back; now it's his turn to evaluate water spots and mouse holes. "Adam, I have many regrets. But I am learning that regret can be instructive, that it can be _necessary_. I made many terrible mistakes, and I hurt those I love. All I can do is seek to make amends, to atone." He shakes his head. "And, perhaps, to move forward as a better being. I make the choice to allow my missteps to forge me anew. It is all I can do."

He rolls onto his side again, and reaches out for Adam. Adam takes his hand and pulls him closer. Michael allows his head to fall on Adam's shoulder, winds his arm around his side. "But I could never regret knowing you. You have shown me what empathy is, what kindness and compassion are even when I believed such things were outside the scope of what I am." He raises his head, and Adam runs fingers through his hair. "I adore you. I would have believed such feelings for anyone, let alone a mortal man, were beyond me. I have never been so happy to be proven wrong." 

Michael smiles down at him, and Adam pulls him into a warm embrace. They settle, and gradually, Adam's heartbeat levels out, his breathing mellows.

Michael wills the lights off, and with a thought, they are under the blankets. 

The rest of the night, he watches the rise and fall of Adam's chest in the darkness.

\---------------------------

The sun rises on a one-star motel in rural Ohio. 

Two sets of brothers emerge from identical, featureless doors concealing identical, nondescript rooms and bid each other good morning. One jokes about coffee. One mentions breakfast. One asks a question concerning the acquisition of pie. One smiles and rolls his eyes. 

The open road stretches in front of them. As they greet the dawn, hands held in hands, feet on the dashboard ( _get those down, who raised you?!_ ), classic rock on the radio, the air is light and clear. Smoke and ashes only a fading memory. 

A few miles up the road, a diner is just opening its doors. A neon sign in the window promises the "Best Cherry Pie in Ohio." 

The new day looks promising already. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOGO Winchester angst :)
> 
> I am really pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It took a lot out of me to write it, but I feel very satisfied with the end result. Also if you have never dedicated an hour to creeping yourself out searching for "liminal space" and looking at pictures of eerie hotel rooms, I highly recommend the experience. 
> 
> We're just over halfway through! What do you think? What's your favorite chapter so far?


	15. O is for Orphans (Michael & Gabriel & Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- We can't get back what we lost, but we still have each other.

_Saint George and the Balaur: Draconic Folklore in Romania_ was less lively a story than he'd desired, but as a way to pass an afternoon, Michael could think of worse options. 

He sighs. The most persistent among the "worse options" had in fact been trying unsuccessfully to claim his attention for weeks. As the steadily-growing pile of books near the couch could attest, it was thus far no match for his dedication to avoiding it. 

The phone next to him buzzes again, and Michael eyes it with distaste. He would not turn it off entirely - not with all three brothers Winchester away for what Dean had grinningly referred to as "dude time" (Michael was certain large quantities of alcohol would be involved) - but the contact that flashed across the screen was less welcome even than Dean at his most bristling and belligerent. 

"I wonder if we can ignore him forever," comes a voice from the doorway. "He keeps calling me, too. I reset my voicemail message to the _Casa Erotica_ soundtrack, but I don't think he understands the hint." 

Michael breathes out an exasperated half-chuckle. "At least he took the instructions we left him regarding phone usage to heart." Gabriel wanders in, leaning on his arms along the back of the couch. "If he had sent one more hapless messenger knocking in the middle of the night, I think Adam would have forced me to deal with the issue out of spite alone." 

Gabriel snorts. "Sam thinks I should talk to him, but he won't say it to my face. Just makes puppy eyes at me over the top of Luci's head every time the damn thing rings."

The pile of books chooses that moment to topple over. With a _tch_ and an expression of disdain, Michael wills them back to their original locations in the library. 

He lays his current book in his lap, tries and fails not to let his hands fidget. "Has Lucifer expressed an opinion on the matter?" Michael asks, subdued. He looks up to see Gabriel shaking his head. 

"If you want to talk to him about that, you know you need to do it yourself," Gabriel replies. "He doesn't want to talk to Raphael any more than either of us, but his reasons are better. How he deals with that is his own business." Gabriel lets his arms slide out from under him, flopping over the back of the couch. He lets himself lean forward, farther and farther - until he slides all the way over, landing face-first in a heap on the cushions next to Michael. Michael lets out an undignified squawk, and Gabriel cackles as Michael swats at him with the book. He settles himself lazily next to Michael, legs curled under him, and Michael gives him a look equal parts irritated and fond. 

"And to think, they want _us_ in charge," Gabriel chuckles. His gaze turns thoughtful, fixed on the black screen of the television in front of them. "Listen, Raph's just gonna keep calling, but... I don't know what else to tell him. He's not going to give up badgering us until it sinks in that you aren't headed up there to put fate back on the rails." He sighs, deep and discontented. "It was bad enough, all the damage he caused when he thought getting you out of the Cage might be impossible. We don't need him destabilizing like that again. But I don't think we can give him any answer he wants to hear." 

Michael tilts his head back, stares at the ceiling. "I agree. I have told him where I stand, he simply refuses to hear me. I am more concerned about what he may do to our brothers and sisters still under his authority. I do not wish them to feel as directionless as we did when Father left." He closes his eyes. "One human lifetime is not so long. All I want is to be undisturbed for the duration of Adam's presence on Earth. I have told Raphael that when he returns to Heaven, so shall I, and we can discuss at that time what role I am to have in its administration." 

Gabriel hums. "I don't know if I can go back. Not to the 'being in charge' part, anyway. I go where Sam goes, and so does Luci." He crinkles his brow, considering. "I'm really not looking forward to that fight, by the way. I'd put all bets in for Lucifer if they got into it, but I'm more than half worried Raphael might not walk away in one piece." 

Michael shakes his head, brow furrowed. "No. I will not let it come to that. Lucifer has done terrible things, but so have we all. He has worked for his healing; he has earned the right to be left in peace. If he wishes to return to Heaven to be with you and with Sam when it is time, I will support him in that decision. And I will do everything within my power to ensure that you both are unbothered by Raphael and his convictions." 

A quiet voice drifts in from the hall, startling them both. 

"You really mean that, don't you?"

They turn as one to face Lucifer, leaning in the door frame with hands in his pockets. For all the casualness in his posture, there is something fragile in the set of his face, and he stares resolutely at the floor.

Michael's countenance smooths, his eyes serious. "I do, yes. We are no longer beholden to our fate, as Father appears to have left us to our own devices. I would see our differences put behind us. All of us. So that we may recover as a family." 

Lucifer looks up, meets his eyes, and Michael goes utterly still. At last, Lucifer nods. A tension he hadn't been aware he was carrying lifts from Michael's shoulders. 

Gabriel reaches a hand toward Lucifer, expression soft. "Come sit next to me. We were just discussing how to get Raph to stop with the constant phone calls. Got any decent suggestions?"

A ruffle of feathers and a displacement of air. Lucifer appears on the couch, curled with his head in Gabriel's lap at the end opposite Michael. Gabriel ruffles fingers through his hair, petting him distractedly.

Lucifer hums. "Have you considered stealing his phone and replacing your contact with a phone sex line? It might help him get in touch with some of humanity's many perks. Or at least introduce him to a new hobby." Gabriel guffaws, and Michael snickers quietly, which he tries, and fails, to cover with a cough. 

"Maybe he can even find his own human to shack up with," Gabriel says thoughtfully. "We already called dibs on the best ones, of course, but there are about seven billion more. One of them is bound to be just as annoying as he is. They could keep each other company, and keep Raphael out of our hair."

Michael's phone buzzes again, and he glares at it unhappily. "Were it only that easy." He reaches forward, but then his expression shifts into an open smile. "Oh, it's from Adam. He would like us to know that they will be out for several hours yet, and... " He squints, then laughs. "He has a very important question for you when he returns, Gabriel. I believe it concerns giraffes. His spelling is rather awful when he's been drinking." 

Gabriel chuckles. "Time left to kill, then." The television flickers to life, and a ruggedly handsome man in a white smock fills the picture, hair tousled by the breeze. 

"Dr. Sexy? Really?" Lucifer rolls his eyes, but settles himself closer against Gabriel. Gabriel leans back and grins. "What? There's a marathon on, and if I want to be able to spoil it for Dean I have to watch them before he does." Lucifer shakes with silent mirth. "Right. And _I_ was the devil."

Michael feels a small smile tug at his lips. He returns to his book. As the drama continues to unfold on the screen before them, he extends one of his wings along the back of the couch behind his brothers, sheltering and affectionate. 

When the Winchesters stagger in, hours later, Gabriel and Lucifer have fallen asleep, and none of them have moved. 

Michael feels Adam's presence behind him before hands glide over his shoulders. Adam tilts forward over the couch with the all the fluid grace of the happily drunk, burying his face in Michael's neck. "Hey, how was your day? 's it any good?"

Michael clasps his hands over Adam's, kissing his knuckles. In this moment, he thinks he has never been more at peace. 

"It was," he sighs contentedly. "It really was." 


	16. P is for Pie (Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- "Love me sweet like sugar in a pie,  
> Kiss me deep with a dreamy little sigh  
> Fill up my cheeks with smiles so I,  
> I cannot tell a lie."  
> [Sugar in a Pie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUB0bx2zWT0&ab_channel=ErinMcKeown-Topic) by Erin McKeown

Dean's return to the bunker is greeted by Gabriel's laughter reverberating through the halls. Dean is used to this - Gabriel, being who he is, laughs at _everything_ \- but this isn't simply good humor. This is side-splitting, cackling mirth.

Whatever's happening down there sounds _hilarious_.

 _Wonder what Sammy's gotten into now?_ Dean thinks, and grins. He descends the stairs, sets the supplies he'd purchased atop the map table, and turns in pursuit of the noise. Strides into the hallway, and sees Gabriel nearly doubled over in the kitchen entryway. Lucifer and Adam lean around to peer over him. Lucifer smirks broadly. Adam's face is flushed red, and he wipes away tears as he tries unsuccessfully to stop giggling. 

Dean saunters over. "What'd I miss?" 

Adam gestures at the kitchen, still overcome. "He - _snrk_ , he just - " He breaks off again, gasping through another fit of laughter. 

Dean finally leans around him. It takes him a moment to process what he sees. 

Oh. Not Sam, then. 

Castiel stands in the center of a rapidly settling cloud of flour. It is caked over every surface in the kitchen, but none more so than the angel himself. He blinks owlishly at them, clutches a now-empty plastic container in his hands. Dean stares, and tamps down the rising tide of laughter threatening to overwhelm him. 

"Y-you look," Gabriel manages between gulping breaths as he tries to recover, "You look like someone used you to erase every chalkboard in the world." 

Castiel narrows his eyes at his brother. "Thank you as always, Gabriel, for your help and incisive observation." Dean shoves around Gabriel, and Castiel's eyes skitter away from him. 

"Cas, what happened? What are you doing?" Dean tracks through the flour, hands hovering over Castiel but not touching him, unsure of how to help. Castiel looks down at the container in his hands, and frowns. 

"The lid was stuck. I became - frustrated." He peeks up at Dean through his eyelashes. 

Dean chuckles. "OK, hey, happens to all of us, right? Let's get you cleaned up." He glances over his shoulder at the others in the doorway, rolls his eyes. "All right, peanut gallery. Pick up a mop or take a hike." 

Gabriel shakes his head. "Nah, I'll do you one better." He snaps, and the flour reappears in the container, sans lid. Dean exhales, grabs it from Castiel's hands, and sets it on the counter. Gabriel waves at them as he turns to leave. "Thanks for the giggles, Cassie, I needed that." He grabs Lucifer's hand and pulls him away down the hall. "C'mon, let's go bug Sam." Adam likewise departs, vanishing further into the bunker.

Dean turns to Castiel, glides his hands over his waist until he can pull the smaller man against him. He smiles down at Cas, who blushes faintly red and seems to have trouble meeting his eyes. "Not trying to be nosy, but what's with the flour, angel? Cooking's not usually your thing."

The blush on his face deepens, and Castiel hides his eyes against Dean's chest. Mumbles incoherently into Dean's shirt. Dean chuckles. "Think I missed that. Care to speak up?" 

Castiel sighs. "I was attempting to make something for you. I thought it would make you happy if you returned home and there was pie. And I know you prefer your food prepared the human way, so I wanted - " he breaks off. "I just wanted to do something nice for you." 

He raises his gaze to see Dean looking back at him, eyes sparkling and a delighted half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Dean slides a hand to cup his jaw, and Castiel presses into it. 

"You. Are making pie. From _scratch_. For me." He grins, and pulls Castiel to him in a breathless kiss. Castiel blinks back at him. "Cas, nobody ever just makes me pie. Ever." He picks Castiel up, spins in place once, then pushes him back against the counter and kisses him again. They hover an inch apart, neither wanting the closeness between them to end. "Can't believe I get to have this," Dean murmurs. "Can't believe I get to have _you_. Love you." 

Castiel smiles up at him, serene. "As I love you." He looks away, at the container of flour. "It may no longer be a surprise, but I would like to finish what I began. Would you care to assist?" 

Dean nods happily, steps back and brushes his hands together. "Let's do it. What kind of pie are we making?" Castiel hums. Opens the refrigerator and pulls out a large bowl. "Apple. I was partway through already when you arrived. The filling is made, but it still needs crust." Dean takes the bowl from his hands, and gleefully steals a sugar-coated apple slice, which he pops into his mouth. 

Castiel pulls the bowl away, wearing a scowl that doesn't touch the humor in his eyes. "This is not yet pie, Dean. And it will never _be_ pie if you eat it all before it can be baked." Dean holds up his hands in surrender. "All right, all right. Hand me a mixing bowl and the flour, let's see what we can do."

...

Two hours later, the warm cinnamon scent of baking drifts through the bunker. Dean and Castiel sit side-by-side on the floor of the kitchen, leaning back against the wall, beers in hand. Two pies cool on the counter beside them. Castiel is, once again, lightly covered in flour, and Dean reaches out to smear it across his cheek. Castiel responds by trying to lick his hand, and Dean barks surprised laughter. 

"Dude, gross." He drags his hand across Castiel's shirt, and the angel leans his head onto Dean's shoulder. 

Sam's face appears around the doorway. "Hey, what are you making? It smells awesome in here." Dean can hear Michael and Adam approaching as well, deep in discussion as they draw nearer. Dean slings one arm over Castiel's shoulders. 

"Cas made me pie," he crows. "We actually made two. So I guess I'll even share, if you want." He waves his beer at Sam. "But! Only if you thank the chef." He leans over, pecks a kiss on Castiel's forehead. Castiel presses himself closer to Dean. 

Sam laughs. "Thanks, Cas. This is nice." 

Dean wholeheartedly agrees. He tilts his head against Castiel's, smiles, and accepts a plate from Sam. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean: cas u kno what my favorite kind of pie is  
> Cas: no dean what is ur favorite kind of pie  
> Dean: *boops Cas's nose* CUTIE pie
> 
> Flufffff <3


	17. Q is for Quiet (Sam/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- How we got from there to here.

1: _Descent_

Lucifer is huddled in a blanket on the floor, wedged between heater and desk chair. Sam, seated at the desk, flips through tome after ancient tome. The being at his feet is in constant minor contact: arm or shoulder brushing against his calf, hand extended from under the blanket to curve around an ankle, head tilted to rest on his thigh. It is unnerving - he can't pretend that it isn't - but Sam had once known that depth of need, the primal grasping for connection. So he allows it. 

It has been three weeks. Lucifer doesn't sleep down there, but that is only because he has yet to sleep at all. Sam can count the instances he has left that spot on one hand. They had tried coaxing him out. To other rooms, to the bed, even to a different patch of floor. He curled in on himself all the tighter for each attempt. 

Since his reentry to the Earth, this has been the sum of his days. A wall heater on one side, desk on the other, ten cubic feet of space in which to reclaim some measure of security. Blankets draped over him, by Sam and by Gabriel; he will acknowledge none of the other residents of the bunker even when they attempt to interact, though this is rare. Near-constant physical contact with one or the other of his former vessel or his brother, Sam working at his desk throughout the day, Gabriel huddled next to him at night. Though it wears on both of them, neither begrudges him the comfort. 

Sam remembered the Cage. When he thought about it too closely, the empathy was enough to crawl up his throat and choke him. 

He does not speak, has said less than a dozen words since the end of his captivity. Sam had asked Gabriel if he could - share thoughts? Hear his grace? Something. 

Gabriel had only shaken his head, exhausted. 

"He wasn't like this when he was out before," he'd murmured, leaning on Sam's shoulder to look down at Lucifer. "It's like he's in pieces. Parts of his mind are here, but parts are... I don't know, _elsewhere_. Think going back into the Cage was worse than being in the first time." Sam shivered at that, and drew Gabriel closer. 

"I can feel him trying to pull himself back together." Shadows pooled heavy under Gabriel's eyes. "I think it's just going to take a while." 

So Sam remains close at hand, and lets Lucifer reach for him. Dean can growl and mutter about it all he likes. At first he had done so, frequently, but Gabriel chased him out of the room and told him in colorful terms that brooked no argument to _get bent, Dean, we've got it handled_. As the weeks had gone by with no signs of threat - or much of anything else - from Lucifer, Dean's suspicion had worn away to grudging acceptance. 

But sometimes, recently, Sam looks down and Lucifer will meet his eyes. And for the briefest of moments, Sam forgets that they were once - still might be - enemies. Before he drifts away into thoughts again, just for a heartbeat, Sam sees someone home behind his eyes. 

It doesn't look like the Lucifer of the apocalypse, frigid indifferent madness and callous desperation. 

Someone new. 

  
2: _Retroburn_

About a month in, he'd begun to move around Sam's room. Little things: he'd take a book from the desk, read in silence near Sam as he worked. When he finished, he'd stand, stretch, and return the book to seek a new one. He had begun to perch on the bed, sometimes, or against the other side of the desk (always within reach, always nearby). Sam would awaken to find him seated at the foot of their bed, leaning against Gabriel or just curled on top of the blankets. 

Sam thinks he should find the lack of privacy, of personal space, to be disconcerting. And yet, he'd realized with shock, it was almost soothing. It was predictable, and comfortable in its predictability. 

Now, at just over two months, he has progressed to venturing through the bunker unattended. The rest of the residents have taken notice. 

"Is he talking yet?" Adam asks Sam, nodding after Lucifer as he passed by the kitchen, a stack of books from the library in hand. 

Sam shakes his head, removes a beer from the fridge, pops it open. "Not yet. Gabriel thinks he's probably _able_ to, just doesn't want to." He takes a long swig of beer, then turns to Adam. "How are you? And how's Michael doing? I don't think I've seen him in - " Sam frowns, " - a couple days, at least." 

Adam shrugs. "I'm fine. Still kinda feels like I got off the bus in a different universe than I got on, but I'll deal. Michael is..." He looks at the door. "Michael is coping. He doesn't like to be left alone for very long."

Sam smiles, but it doesn't make it to his eyes. "Yeah, I get that. Speaking of which. Guess we should both get back."

Adam nods, turns to leave. On his way out the door, he pauses, and addresses Sam over his shoulder. 

"Sam?"

Sam raises eyebrows. "Adam? What's up?" 

"... I'm glad he has you." He exhales, low and long. "And, you know. Thanks." 

He's gone before Sam can form a reply. 

...

Definitely someone new. Lucifer's gaze is clearer than Sam can ever remember it, as though a fog has lifted. He's always been focused, but rather than out at the broader world in assault and aggression, his attention seems directed inward. At himself, at the books he squirrels away from the library, at the people and environment around him. 

At Sam, most of all. 

Gabriel gives them space, which Sam is both confused by and thankful for. He'd only smiled and shaken his head when Sam tried to ask, expression indecipherable - warm, yes, but also profoundly sad, and something else for which Sam has no name. Sam thinks he knows the cause. He takes every spare moment to press lips and hands and skin to Gabriel, to run fingers through his hair and hold him and whisper devotions, which Gabriel returns with fervor. They've had no time to themselves, not for months, and while Sam could no more shed Lucifer from his orbit than stop breathing, and Gabriel would never ask him to, he knows what it is costing them both. 

He can only be grateful that, for the moment, they both remain willing to pay it. 

...

Sam is there the first time Lucifer laughs again. 

They are both on the bed, slouched loosely next to each other, companionable. Sam wades through an ancient and hefty volume of Enochian script, jotting translations on a pad beside him. Lucifer, more or less a ball next to him, curls around one of the few works of contemporary fiction the library has to offer. His eyes have been sparkling since he picked it up, and a smile has crept onto his face as he read. 

Partway through, Sam feels his shoulders shake. Turns to make sure nothing is wrong, but he's - laughing. Quietly to himself, but after months of silence Sam finds it almost overwhelming, deafening. Sam feels a ridiculous grin break across his face, and Lucifer notices, smirks back at him. He tilts his head onto Lucifer's shoulder and asks, "What's so funny?"

Lucifer shrugs, leans his head against Sam's. 

Sam is unbothered by the lack of response. "Has to be better than mine. If the key to beating whatever we fight next is in this book, I'm honestly tempted to just let it eat me. It can't possibly be more unpleasant than this." 

Lucifer snickers. Sam thinks it might be the most incredible sound he's ever heard. Then, in a voice rough from disuse but steady and sure: 

"Want help?" 

Sam stares. Lucifer raises an eyebrow, waiting. 

"I mean, yeah, yes, please. You don't have to - I - thank you." 

Lucifer gestures for the book and the notepad, and picks up in tidy, precise script where Sam's scribbles leave off. 

Sam settles against him, still smiling. 

  
3: _Arrival_

He has his own room now. He hadn't wanted one, but Sam had insisted. 

"You know I'm not kicking you out." Sam's voice was soft in his ear, chin on his shoulder, arms looped around his waist. He leaned back against Sam and contemplated the new room. "I just want you to have a space of your own, if you want it. Turn it into a study - it's not like you have to sleep here." He chuckles, and Sam nuzzles against his neck. "But I wanted you to know that this is yours, Luce. This is your home too, whether I'm here or not." 

He pauses. Closes his eyes. "I appreciate it, Sam. Thank you." He turns in Sam's arms, looks up at him, eyes crystal and clear. "But my home is wherever you are. You know that." 

Sam brushes lips softly against his. "Yeah, I know. And you're mine. Both of you." He laughs softly, pulls back a fraction. "Since our sleeping arrangement appears to be permanent, I'm going to have to bribe Gabe into getting us a bigger bed. Think it'll be hard?"

Lucifer smiles. It's an expression he wears often, recently.

"I think you can probably persuade him. Let's ask." 

Sam turns, finds Gabriel leaning in the door frame, smirking and arms crossed. "Dunno, sounds like a big job. What do I get?" 

Sam reaches for him and laughs. He pulls him into his arms, tips his chin up until the mocking pout he's affected falls from his face and he has no choice but to kiss Sam back. Lucifer presses against him, arms around Gabriel's waist and face burrowed into his hair. 

Gabriel ducks away, grinning. "All right, all right. One moose-plus-two size bed, coming right up. Don't say I never did anything for you." He saunters away down the hallway, humming tunelessly to himself. 

Sam slides one hand into Lucifer's, tugs on him. "Wanna get lunch with me? I'm starving." He turns toward the door, but Lucifer pulls him back. 

"Sam?" Lucifer's face has fallen still and serious, unmoving in the way that reminds Sam with a shiver that he isn't, and never has been, human. 

"What is it, everything ok?" 

Lucifer steps into Sam's space, pulls him into a hug that suddenly reminds Sam of Dean, of the end of the world, of all the times they'd embraced like it was _the last time_. 

This, though. This feels strangely hopeful. Like the end of something, yes, but also like a beginning. 

As though he is being offered the dawn. 

Lucifer sighs against his neck, clutches at his shoulders, and is unable to find the words.

Sam knows what he means anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say, I like writing these more serious chapters. The one-shot fluff is fun too, but I hope someday I have the time to write the larger story that these disconnected pieces draw from. It's a heck of a thing, and I'm glad you're letting me share it with you. 
> 
> Advance notice: no update tomorrow. I will be doing the necessary American thing and getting very, very drunk to celebrate Inauguration Day. Here's to the days ahead of us being brighter than those we're leaving behind.


	18. R is for Reconfiguration (Sam/Gabriel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Use your words.

"Heyyyyyy Samshine, ready to go?" Gabriel singsongs, swings open the door to their room and saunters through. "Come on, I want to get there before - " He stops midstride. Concern blooms across his features. 

Sam sits on the bed, one arm around Lucifer. Lucifer's legs are pulled to his chest, arms crossed over his knees and face hidden. Gabriel feels a flash of fear pass through him, but Sam's posture doesn't scream _protective_ as it so often does around his brother. Upon hearing him enter, Lucifer raises his eyes, and Gabriel finally realizes that they wear identical expressions. 

Both Lucifer and Sam look deeply, thunderously annoyed. 

Clearly, they'd been mid-conversation. Sam scrubs a hand down his face. "Luce, look, you just need to talk to him with a clearer head. Take some time to cool off, let him do the same." He shifts away from Lucifer, glances to Gabriel, then back again. "You and Cas still hanging out tonight?"

Lucifer scowls, but nods. "Yes. Dean mentioned something about a bar in town." A wry half-smile. "What an exhilarating choice of evening entertainment. Hide in here alone, or help Dean teach Castiel the joys of parting fools from their money at pool." 

Sam sighs. Slides a hand along Lucifer's arm, still crossed over his legs, until he drops the pose and takes Sam's hand. "Are you sure? Because we could - " 

Lucifer shakes his head. His gaze flickers to meet Gabriel's, then back to Sam. "No. You should go. I'll be fine." Sam looks as though he is about to protest, but Lucifer rolls his eyes. He brushes a brief kiss to Sam's mouth, and is gone in a flutter of wings. 

Sam runs a hand through his hair, exhales roughly. Gabriel walks the few paces to the bed and drops down next to him. 

"Is he ok?" he asks, quietly, and leans against Sam. 

"Yeah. Yeah, he'll be fine." Sam presses back against Gabriel, and something in his chest eases at the contact. "I guess he and Adam spent most of the last couple hours sniping at each other over research in the library. Not what you'd call their proudest moments, from either of them." Sam shakes his head as if to clear cobwebs.

"Do you still want to go?" Gabriel asks softly. 

Sam raises eyes to meet Gabriel's. A small smile. Fingertips tracing over his thigh. "Come on, you know I do. All I want right now is to have you to myself for a night." Sam leans forward, winds one hand around the nape of Gabriel's neck, and pulls him into a kiss, slow and sweet. 

Some of the tension leaves him. He opens his eyes, tilts back to return Sam's smile. Reaches out to take Sam's hands. 

With a thought, the air stirs around them, and they're gone. 

...

The sun is setting over the water when they arrive. 

Low waves lap and hush along red sandstone cliffs, the crest of each turquoise shimmer limned in liquid gold. Gabriel leads Sam through the straggling edge of cool forest down an embankment to the water. 

"Watch your step," he tosses affectionately over his shoulder, and tugs Sam gently along by one hand. 

The ground levels out to a low, flat spit of land extending out into the lake from the cliffs for several hundred feet. At the end, Gabriel pulls Sam down onto a blanket. He produces a basket of food and wine from nowhere with a wave of his hand. Hands Sam a glass. 

Sam leans back in awe. The weathered cliffs behind them are stained brick red, ochre, and saffron, capped by silent and primordial forest. The water stretches as far as he can see in every other direction. The lower edge of the sun barely brushes the horizon. Above them, the heavens burn firey crimson and molten gold, stretching higher and darker until at last the light fades at apex to a slow, spreading indigo. The air around them is cool and crisp. 

"This is incredible," Sam whispers, head on Gabriel's shoulder. 

A flush of warmth flows through him, and he cuddles closer to Sam. "I hoped you'd like it. Guess all I had to do to get you to myself was haul us a couple hundred miles out into the middle of nowhere." He means it to come out light and teasing, but his breathes scrapes and catches in his throat and what comes out instead is darker. Melancholy. 

Sam twists to look at him. "Gabe..." Sam's brow is furrowed, eyes sharp. 

He tries to brush it off. "Hey, sorry, that wasn't what I meant. It's just..." He looks at the ground, picks at loose thread along the edge of the blanket. "... been a while since we got to do this, that's all." 

He feels movement beside him, and finds himself torn. Half of him is desperate to see Sam's face, to know what he feels at Gabriel's sudden change of mood. The other half freezes him in place. He squeezes his eyes shut. 

A hand along his jaw, the other over his shoulder, and Sam is pulling them together. Gabriel is rigid for long seconds, but when Sam doesn't let him go, he falls into the embrace as though strings holding him had been cut. He dimly registers that Sam presses kisses, quick and repeated, across his face, his jaw, his neck. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers into Sam's shoulder, over and over. "I'm sorry, Sam, I'm sorry." He feels an overwhelming need to hide. To pull Sam's arms tighter around him and keep his face pressed into his chest until darkness drops over them like a cloak. 

Sam soothes him, voice soft and low. "Gabriel, hey, it's ok. I know. I'm sorry too. We're here, we're ok." Sam pulls him into his lap, loops one arm around his waist, the other over his shoulders.

In that moment, he has never felt so small. So inconsequential. He has always been a star among stars, but now he is grain of sand on a lonely beach beneath the vault of heaven. 

His voice is low, and quiet, and underscored by pain. 

"Please don't leave me alone." 

Sam huffs out a breath, as though he'd been punched, but Gabriel is babbling now. As though a subtle madness had been growing inside him for weeks, and now that he'd allowed it voice, it would no longer be contained. 

"Sam, please, I feel like I'm losing my mind." He feels Sam tighten his arms around him. "I keep thinking that one day you'll wake up and realize you don't need me or want me any more. That you and Luci will decide you're better off without me."

He pulls back, finally allows himself to meet Sam's eyes. Tears have left tracks down Sam's face, and Gabriel feels a stab of shame. But then Sam is pulling him forward, kissing him desperate and messy and winding hands into his hair until Gabriel knows he'll need to stop to breathe, though that doesn't appear to be deterring Sam in any way. 

Finally they break apart, foreheads tilted together, just sharing air and heat and space. 

"I love you," Sam whispers over his lips. "I'm sorry I let you feel like that for even a second. Gabe, I am so, _so_ sorry. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not leaving you. Not now, and not ever." He chuckles, kisses Gabriel again, slowly. "You're stuck with me for as long as you want me." They pull apart, just enough for Sam to meet his eyes. "I'll talk to Lucifer when we get home, ok? Let him know that you and I need more time for just the two of us. He'll understand."

Gabriel exhales one shuddering breath, burrows his face into the space under Sam's jaw. Nods. "Sorry I got dramatic. We haven't even eaten dinner yet." 

Sam strokes along his spine. "Don't apologize. I'm glad you told me." He gently pushes at Gabriel's shoulders, just enough to convince him to lean back, and Sam hands him one of the abandoned glasses of wine. "We'll do this more often. The date part, anyway." He grins. "I've missed this, with you. Love you." 

Gabriel smiles back, leans forward for one last kiss. "Thanks, Sam. Love you too." 

He climbs off Sam's lap, and settles next to him to watch the stars come out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor sweet Gabe. R is not for Replacement, bby. Relationships take work, and the more people you add to them, the more work they take. 
> 
> (The place Gabriel took Sam to is a specific, real place. It is even more indescribably beautiful and serene in real life, and is one of my most treasured memories.)


	19. S is for Spear (Adam/Michael)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- "Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."  
> [Letters to a Young Poet](https://www.carrothers.com/rilke8.htm)

_Floomph_. Adam drops another box of journals onto the stack in the corner, billowing a half-century's worth of dust up into the air around him. He sneezes. 

"I have located another set of prints for Sam." Adam turns to glance over his shoulder as Michael enters the stockroom, depositing another large and equally dusty crate on the table in front of him. The bunker's labyrinthine subterranean levels contain a seemingly endless trove of artifacts and knowledge, hidden in long-locked storage rooms. Not for the first time, Adam wonders if they'll ever be able to catalog it all. 

Currently, Sam is on a quest for a particular item - sixteenth-century woodcuts of river dragons in the Italian peninsula - and what records he'd found narrowed their search down to a few previously-unaccessed rooms. The sounds of shuffling paper and the occasional _thunk_ of shifting boxes or books echo down the hall, as the others work nearby. 

Adam wipes sweat and grime off his forehead, drops into a chair next to Michael. The crate contains a pile of faded prints divided by leaves of thin onionskin and sturdier pages of scribbled text. Michael gingerly lifts them free, sets them on the table, and hands half the stack to Adam before taking a seat beside him. 

The prints seem to have no shared theme, other than broadly similar age and geography, but they look promising. Adam sifts through them carefully, jotting notes on scrap paper and separating out those that seem most useful. The rhythm of the work is engrossing: flip, examine, write. Flip, examine, write. 

"No dice so far on Sam's dragons, but some of these are kind of cool." He cracks his neck, finishes his last annotation. "You finding anything good?" Silence. Adam looks up at Michael. He is still - angel still, Adam realizes, in the inhuman way that sometimes overtakes him, when he forgets to breathe or otherwise maintain the illusion of humanity. He stares down at the illustration in front of him, expression wooden. Adam scoots the chair closer to him. Leans over to his shoulder to examine the print. 

_Well_ , Adam thinks. _Shit_. 

The faded page before him depicts two winged figures, one sprawled along the ground, horned and clawed and hissing upward in defiance. The other, blonde, beatific, armored in gold. Standing atop his foe's back, spear forever poised in the moment preceding bloodshed. 

"One must admire the execution of the work," Michael intones, voice strangely hollow. "The artist was quite skilled." Adam hooks his chin over Michael's shoulder, winds a hand around his waist. Michael shakes his head, as though remembering where he is, that he isn't alone. He's suddenly lifelike again: Adam feels it when he remembers to inhale, to let his heart beat, to shift and fidget and allow the minute rearrangement of muscles that keep human bodies balanced and coordinated. 

"Skilled, sure," Adam agrees amenably, "but boring. Most Renaissance art is just the same five scenes done by dudes whose primary aspiration in life was to show off how well they could recreate the texture of fabric using oil paint." Michael leans into him, but the laugh Adam had hoped for fails to materialize. He sighs. The archangel has been moodier than usual of late. 

"I suppose it is rich enough subject matter," Michael grumbles. "That the artist considered this moment a triumph is an irony which does not escape me. A rendering of my greatest mistreatment of one of my brothers, painted by a man named after another."

Adam glances at him quizzically, but Michael glares at the print, avoiding his eyes. Adam tugs him closer, determined. 

"Hey," he says, nuzzling into Michael's neck. "Out with it. You've been in this funk for days. I'm just going to keep pestering you until you tell me what's wrong, so you might as well talk to me." 

Michael leans arms on the table, face in hands, eyes shut against his palms. "I apologize. I am just..." Growling exhale. "I am simply frustrated. Will my failures ever cease haunting me? I am _trying_ , Adam." He slides his hands up to twist into his hair. 

"For most of my long existence, this is what I aspired to be." He waves at the print. "An instrument of righteousness. The unwavering executor of my Father's will." He frowns, and Adam presses a kiss to his jaw. "But now I have been given reason to grow beyond what I once thought absolute. I lack certainty - I question, and I doubt. Activities which I once considered unforgiveable." 

He pauses, and Adam tugs him back against his chest. "I am working to make amends. To you, and to your brothers, and to my own. I hope to see the day come when even Heylel forgives me."

Adam runs one hand under his chin, turns his head until he finally meets his eyes. Michael looks lost, and Adam feels his heart swell. "I know, Mika," he says softly. "But you have to work on forgiving yourself, too, you know?"

He turns to contemplate the print. "This - _this_ isn't you. I don't think it ever was." He indicates the placid expression of the spear-wielding angel. "You care, Michael. You've always cared. You might be able to hide that from the others, but I've seen as much of you as you've seen of me, remember?" 

Michael cuddles closer to him, and Adam idly strokes one hand along his spine. "It's one of the things I love most about you. You care enough to confront what scares you. You could've gone back to how you were before, once we were out of the Cage. Could've gone straight back to Heaven and Raphael and the Grand Plan. But you didn't. You stayed here with us. With me." 

Michael sighs against his neck. "I do not believe I could have done so without you. I cannot express what it means, that you accept me still."

Adam turns his face, pulls Michael up and into a kiss, sweet and lingering. "I've been in your head. I've seen everything going on in there. And I love all of it." He grins. "Come on, O former Sword of Heaven, let's finish going through these and get some lunch. I'm sick of art history." 

Michael huffs out a laugh. Nods. Brushes a thumb over a smudge of dust on Adam's cheek. "Agreed. Perhaps a shower first, though? We are both quite filthy." 

The smile on Adam's face twists into something closer to a smirk. His eyes sparkle. "You know, on second thought, I think the rest of this will keep." He tugs Michael to his feet, pulls him toward the door. "If we're going to shower anyway, might as well get as sweaty as we can first, make it worth it." Michael laughs and reaches out to catch at his shirt, but Adam dances just out of range of his fingertips, teasing.

Laughing and stumbling, they chase each other down the hall and up the stairs, toward more pleasant activities. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The painting they both hate is Raphael's [St. Michael Vanquishing Satan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_Vanquishing_Satan)


	20. T is for Trickster (Gabriel & Everybody, Sam/Gabriel/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Old habits die hard.

Dean drops into the Impala, exhausted but triumphant. Another day, another monster. Another grateful survivor. Sam examines his reflection in the rearview mirror. He's only _lightly_ covered in slime. 

"Well, Sammy, I'd call that one a win. Long drive back, but I think we earned our beauty sleep tonight." 

Sam nods, and Dean twists the ignition. 

" _I beliieeevve that the heart does go ooonnn._ " The volume is cranked to max, and Dean jumps hard enough to smack his head on the roof. Sam snorts laughter. 

"Sonovabitch! Ha ha, very funny." Dean turns the volume down and desperately fiddles with the radio. 

" _I was blessed because I was loved by you._ " A frown. Turn the dial. 

" _Love comes to those who believe it, and that's the way it is._ " Dean's glare at the radio intensifies. Next station.

" _I can't believe I've been touched by an angel with love._ " 

Growling with frustration, Dean pounds a fist on the dashboard. Sam is gasping for air beside him, cheeks bright red and tears streaming down his face. 

"I'm glad at least one of us is enjoying themselves, Samantha." He moves to switch the radio off, and - 

\- and it won't. The volume doesn't budge. Sam's laughter redoubles. Dean feels an impending migraine. 

He didn't even know there _was_ this much Celine Dion. 

Even at this distance, just past the edge of hearing, Dean can sense someone cackling. 

\---------------------------

The woman at the front desk of their next job is unamused, and threatens to call the police. As they walk out of the building, Sam looks at his fake ID in dismay. Dean can't stop grinning. 

"Oh, come on, Sam. It was pretty funny." Dean punches him on the arm. "You'd make a _great_ Federal Booty Inspector."

\---------------------------

They're all together for dinner. A rare occasion, but one that is always cause for celebration. Adam and Dean chased everyone else out of the kitchen hours ago. Dean had a strict "No Angels" policy with regards to cooking ("It's not the same if you just mojo it up, now _get outta my kitchen_.") Adam shared Dean's feelings on the food Sam was most likely to feed them ("Sam, how long did I spend in Hell? I want burgers. Leave me alone about it.") 

Primarily, they both just want to drink their beer in peace. 

"Gotta hand it to you, kid. Your mom raised you right. You can cook." Dean cracks a half-smile at Adam, and Adam grins back. Flips the last of the burgers onto a plate. Grabs the plate and his beer; Dean follows with another six-pack. Everything else is out at the table already, and the others are waiting on them. 

"Food's hot!" Dean deposits the beer at the table, and sinks into a chair next to Castiel. Adam sits across, next to Michael, and presents the burgers with a flourish. 

Adam pulls various condiments and deep-fried odds and ends across the table toward himself, and begins the painstaking process of assembling the most lavish possible burger. Dean, eyes bright, does the same. Sam and Michael stare balefully at them, wearing identical expressions of mixed concern and faint disgust. 

"Just because you eat rabbit food," Dean chuckles, and Adam smirks. Nearly simultaneously, they bite into their burgers. 

They chew. A look of deep confusion creeps across Adam's face. Dean just looks aghast. He swallows, and coughs. 

"What the - ?" he starts, lifting the bun carefully, as though it might bite him back. Adam just stares at the food in his hands. After a handful of seconds, he manages: 

"Tofu?" 

Simultaneous glares down the length of the table. Sam and Lucifer just look confused, but Gabriel wears a look of innocence that is _painfully_ insincere. 

"Oh, that's it, I'm gonna end you." Dean growls. With a flap of wings, the table is suddenly less one archangel. 

Dean snarls, and Adam sighs in frustration. Michael winds an arm around his waist, trying to be consoling, but his inability to stop chuckling means he rather widely misses the mark. Dean grabs his beer, aiming to wash the unexpected taste out of his mouth. 

Finds that his beer has been replaced by water. 

\---------------------------

"Gabe?" Sam says carefully, towel still wrapped around his waist from the shower. Gabriel looks up from his perch on the bed, book on his lap. Raises an eyebrow. "Something I can help you with, Sammich?" 

Sam takes a deep breath. Counts backward from five. 

"Where are all my underwear?"

As Gabriel bites his lip to keep from smiling, a door slams open down the hall. 

" _Goddammit Gabriel!_ " 

He can't take it anymore. Gabriel cracks up. "That's my cue," he laughs, and vanishes. 

\---------------------------

"Don't - no, do not touch me, Adam." Michael sounds frazzled. As Sam enters the library, he immediately sees why. 

Half a dozen books, two coffee cups, a plate, fork, and a chair bob lazily in midair about a foot behind Michael's head. As he moves across the room, the constellation of items drifts around him. He backs slowly away from Adam, who has paused, hand extended toward his partner, expression puzzled. 

"Uhhh... guys?" They both turn to face Sam. "What's with the - ?" He waves in the direction of Michael's entourage of objects. 

Michael looks pained. "Everything I have touched in the last hour. My brother's idea of a joke, I believe." 

Sam rolls his eyes. "Can't you just make it stop?" 

Gabriel pops into existence at his elbow. "Not until he says the magic word!" 

Michael glares at him, exasperated. "Gabriel, I hardly find this amusing. Desist at once." 

"Such a control freak," Gabriel mutters. "Mikey, you know how to make this stop. Four little words. Unless," he leers at Adam, "you want boytoy there to join your antigravity escort the next time you hold hands... or whatever." 

A sigh. "Fine," Michael huffs. " 'Gabriel is my favorite.' Are you satisfied?" 

The objects clatter to the floor around him. Gabriel looks smug. "Very!" 

\---------------------------

Castiel's hair has been standing straight up from his head all day. Every time he comes within six inches of one of the others, he discharges static electricity. Everyone has been shocked at least twice. 

He's starting to look faintly miserable. "Dean," he reaches out, but there's a _pop!_ and Dean yelps, rubbing at his arm. 

Sam pulls Gabriel into his lap, watches from across the room. "Ok, this one isn't funny any more. Cut it out."

Gabriel huffs. "I was just trying to rile Dean up. He spends so much time avoiding PDA, and I know how much it bugs Cassie. He needs to learn to appreciate what he has."

A chuckle. "You make a good point, but c'mon, stop torturing Cas. It's not his fault Dean's an idiot."

"Guess you're right, Samshine. You usually are." 

Across the room, Castiel's hair abruptly settles back into its usual fluffy mess. He blinks, then reaches out to take Dean's hand. They both look incredibly relieved at the lack of shock. Dean gives Sam and Gabriel a dirty look over his shoulder as they exit the library. 

\---------------------------

They're laying in bed together. Sam is cuddled around Lucifer. Gabriel is stretched out on his stomach, tracing runes with his fingers idly along Lucifer's arm. 

"Gabriel?" Lucifer asks quietly. 

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you ever prank me?" Gabriel's eyes skitter away, then back. Lucifer's face is open, though, relaxed; the question is honest, merely inquisitive. Sam raises his head to peer at Gabriel over Lucifer's shoulder. 

"You play ridiculous jokes on everyone else in our family. Even Sam. _Especially_ Sam. So why am I exempt?"

Gabriel's brow furrows. He sighs. "Just don't want to, that's all." 

Lucifer drifts a hand along his arm, tugs at him until he scoots closer to cuddle against his chest. Gabriel drops his head on Lucifer's arm, closes his eyes. 

"It's ok, you know." He strokes a hand lightly along Gabriel's jaw. Gabriel opens his eyes, meet's Lucifer's gaze. "I won't mind." He tilts forward to brush their lips together, quiet and tender. 

Gabriel nestles his head into the space between Lucifer's arm and his chin, and Lucifer and Sam both slide hands across his back and pull him in tighter. 

"Not gonna get mad at me?"

Lucifer chuckles, and runs a hand through his hair. "Brother. You might be the only being in this universe I _can't_ stay mad at." Sam snickers, and Lucifer rolls his eyes. "Hush, Sam." He looks down at Gabriel fondly. "I like you the way you are. You don't have to filter that for my sake."

Gabriel grins. "So what you're saying is, if... oh, I don't know... all your pants suddenly disappeared?" 

A smile, dark and laden with promise, and Lucifer's eyes sparkle. "I suppose I'd just have to get into yours." 

"I like this idea already," Gabriel purrs against his throat. Lucifer and Sam pull him, still grinning, between them. 

Shortly after, they decide that nobody really needs any pants after all. 


	21. U is for Unbelievable (Gabriel/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- On forgiveness, and second chances.

In a silent field outside Lebanon, Kansas, two archangels sit on a soft wool blanket. They've claimed this little corner of the universe as their own, a sense of belonging reverberating through them as though they sprang from this soil. From the ground beneath their feet to the wash of stars overhead, they resonate with every part of it. The Milky Way spreads above them, a wonder galactic in magnitude. 

With language beyond the framing of mortal lips, Lucifer tells Gabriel the name of every star in the sky. 

\---------------------------

It began as it would end. It began with a question. 

Gabriel had forgotten so much of the first battle. They hadn't invented the word for it, yet; he remembered that much. The concept was still too new, still far too raw to attempt summary description. A violation of identity which should have been inconceivable. To rend and turn violence against their own kin? It was overwhelming. How could there exist a word for such a thing? It was too big. The shape of it would never fit. The pain was such that, for a strange and awful time after, no artifact of language was sufficient to circumscribe it. 

Much later, they called it war. Hiding it behind a name eased the sting. 

This is the thing from which Gabriel thinks he may never recover:

For a single moment, before he began to freefall and his wings burned, Heylel had hung suspended in air. Wreathed in blood and anguish, gazing back at his brother out of eyes which would no longer beg. They'd all discovered, far too late, the depth of will the Lightbringer concealed in himself. Pushed to the point of deference or destruction, he'd been adamantine. Immovable in his conviction. 

Perhaps they would have pushed less, had they known. Tried harder to make peace, to bridge their divide. 

Though - knowing his family - probably not. 

In that moment before the fall, in the last moment that could ever be called "before" (because, from this point, there would only be "after," with all that the word implies), Michael's expression had been indistinguishable from his brother's own. 

Grief. Fear. Disbelief. 

As Heylel fell, his last word rang out amidst the host, a single chime through the horror:

"Why?"

He had been unable to watch. Bereaved and ashamed, Gabriel fled. 

\---------------------------

"You and Mike were arguing again?"

Lucifer pauses his astronomical litany. For all that it was spoken softly, without blame or judgement, it also wasn't really a question, inflection be damned. Gabriel had heard them fighting. It was why they had sought refuge out here, away from the others and the usual comforts of their home and their mate. It hadn't required discussion. Gabriel had simply met Lucifer's eyes, taken his hand, and they'd flown. 

The older angel makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "He started it." 

Gabriel leans into his side. "Takes two people to scream at each other, Luce."

A pause. 

"Hey, I'm not blaming you. I know how hard Michael can be to take. I just..." Gabriel trails off, vague and uneasy. Lucifer shifts closer, leans his head on his shoulder. 

"I know." Lucifer sighs. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'll apologize to Michael when we get home." 

A chuckle. "There was a time when the thought of that sentence coming out of your mouth was so far beyond unthinkable." 

Lucifer tilts his head back, eyes fixed on the sky. Reflected in them, Gabriel sees galaxies. 

\---------------------------

The sundering of their family should have been irreparable. And yet. 

Lucifer couldn't remember much about coming out of the Cage the second time. As though he'd been lost in the wilderness all his life, wandering through drifts of snow deeper than the limits of his perception. One moment, he was in the vast and desolate wastes of his prison. The next, he'd been called, by light and magic, by human soul and angelic grace he knew like a heartbeat. A doorway left open, a cabin with a fire, a hand beckoning him in from the cold. 

He'd been drowning, uncomprehending, unable to meet it. It had pulled him through anyway, broken the icy surface and dragged him up for air. 

The weeks and months that followed had passed like water through cupped hands. He had fractured and reassembled his mind times beyond counting over eons of confinement; he was accustomed to his sense of self waxing and waning, the phases predictable in their repetition. But as he put the pieces of his tattered grace back together, he was overtaken by sensations so long forgotten as to be almost completely alien. 

Warmth. Acceptance. Patience. Compassion. 

He had no idea what to do with these feelings. Gabriel and Sam had every reason to abandon him to his fate. No precedent on which to pin hopes of better outcomes. 

They came for him anyway. 

For the first time in his long, long life, someone had cared enough not to leave him behind. 

\---------------------------

It ends as it began. 

Eyes full of stars, Lucifer breathes out a word. A question. The only one he's ever had. 

"Why?"

Gabriel twines their fingers together. "I could ask you the same." He curls in on himself. Then: 

"Because I love you, and because I'm sorry." 

Lucifer turns. Leans into Gabriel, bracing hands on either side of his legs, to press into a kiss and tilt backward onto the blanket. Head on Gabriel's chest, curled into his side, Lucifer closes his eyes. 

"Me, too." 

Gabriel props his head on one arm. Runs the other hand along Lucifer's spine, back and forth, soothing. 

"We have our family back. I'm not letting that go again."

Lucifer squeezes arms around him. Holds him tighter. 

They lay together, twined around each other, until dawn finds them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was on the fence as to whether the past-tense sections should be in italics. Stylistically, I like the visual offset for the tense changes, but I also find large blocks of italicized text difficult to read sometimes, so my eyeballs have sympathy for your eyeballs. Do you have an opinion? I'd love to hear about it.


	22. V is for Vessel (Adam/Michael, Sam/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Let's get (meta)physical.

"You really would not consider it again?" 

"What, you're saying you _do_?"

Sam enters the kitchen to the sound of arguing. Michael stands next to the table, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. Lucifer glares back at him, combative. Sam sighs. 

"Guys, what is it now?"

Lucifer startles at the sound of Sam's voice, but his posture relaxes from aggressive to merely annoyed. "Nothing, don't worry about it. Mike was just oversharing about his and Adam's love life." He scowls at Michael. 

Michael meets it with a roll of his eyes. "I was doing no such thing. You wished for an honest answer. If you did not like it, I am hardly to blame for your insecurities." 

Lucifer looks as though he's on the verge of cursing, but bites back whatever he was about to say. Instead, he turns to leave. Sam reaches out to him, but he twists away and avoids eye contact. "Look, just drop it. I'm done with this conversation." Two steps from the door, he vanishes. Sam huffs frustration, and turns back to Michael.

"I already know I'm going to regret asking, but what was that about?" 

Irritation is written across Michael's features. He scrubs a hand over his face. "The topic of our binding to our current vessels came up. Apparently, the magic that binds me in this vessel has faded considerably faster than that which binds my brother to his." He flexes his fingers, contemplative, then looks back up at Sam. "Adam and I have adjusted well enough to being apart, but we... " 

He shrugs. "We shared everything for more than a millennium. We both understand that our separation was a necessary component to our liberation, but even so, neither of us chose it willingly."

Surprise washes through Sam, and an undercurrent of something darker he has no words for. It tightens deep in his chest. "I mean, we knew the binding wouldn't be permanent. Gabriel had no idea how long it _would_ last, but it was always going to wear off eventually. So, what, you want to go back to possessing him? And he's all right with it?"

"That is a private matter between Adam and myself. But no, we have no plans to make such an arrangement permanent." Michael's face smooths as he considers. "There is no need to worry for your brother, Sam. The relationship Adam and I share pleases both of us, and how we carry out that relationship is between us alone. I understand why your experience with Lucifer would be different."

He cocks his head, studying Sam. "Please give him my apologies. I did not mean to antagonize him, or pry into your private affairs. I should have realized how strong his feelings on the subject would be."

"I will." With a nod to Michael, Sam leaves to look for Lucifer. 

\---------------------------

When Michael returns to their room, Adam is napping, book fallen half off the bed next to him. 

Michael smiles, wills the book to rest neatly on the desk nearby. Seats himself next to Adam, and runs a hand up his arm. He feels Adam's consciousness return and stir to wakefulness before he opens his eyes. 

Adam smiles up at him, groggy, and reaches out a hand to tug at Michael. He curls forward until he's resting half in the angel's lap, head against his stomach. Michael scratches lightly at his scalp. His grace reaches out for Adam, almost on reflex, twining through his mind and around his soul. Adam sighs peacefully, and pulls him closer. 

"You were tired?" Adam yawns against him. Nods. 

"Guess this bed is just too comfortable. How long was I out?" 

A cup of coffee appears in Michael's hand, and he passes it to Adam, who groans appreciatively. "I was gone for about an hour, so not long." Adam's soul swirls up to meet him. He presses at the places where they wind together, emotions resonating across the boundaries. Gratitude. Contentment. Love. 

Warmth floods through him. He pulls Adam up to meet him in a kiss. They break apart after a moment, but Adam remains resting against his chest. 

Pulling Adam along, Michael shifts until they can lean back against the wall. He closes his eyes. For long moments the only sounds are of his human's breathing and the occasional sip of coffee. 

Eventually, Adam nuzzles his head into Michael's shoulder. "You have something on your mind. What are you thinking about?"

In answer, Michael flickers affection across their bond. Adam reaches back toward him, the edges of grace and soul blending together under the pull of each other. 

They're still separate enough that they need words, but the underpinning emotions echo between them. 

"This," Michael finally replies, and Adam would know what he meant even without the reverent whispers of grace. "Apparently Lucifer and your brother do not have this with each other. I'm not sure why that surprises me."

"You were talking to them about it?"

"Not deliberately. It came up in passing." He pauses. Adam feels regret stir through him. "It is a sensitive subject for him, and I was inconsiderate." 

A brush of lips along the edge of his jaw. "He's not made of glass, Michael. Sam either. They'll work it out." Adam grasps with thought and feeling, pushing at their edges. Michael reaches back in turn. This is as close to one as they can get in disparate bodies. As close to whole. Michael can feel Adam like an ocean along his vessel's skin, waves lapping just underneath the surface. 

Adam trails fingers along Michael's cheek, down his neck, over his collarbone. The touch sparks joy and pleasure in its wake, sensations reverberating between them. Michael reaches up to cover Adam's hand with his own, eyes closed. 

"Would you like...?" Michael trails off. Adam smiles against his skin. 

"You know I would. _Yes_."

\---------------------------

Sam eventually finds Lucifer in his own room. Rare enough to find him in here - while Sam had made it clear that the space was Lucifer's own, he preferred to spend time in the room he usually shared with Sam and Gabriel. A small fortress of books surrounds him at his desk, but his gaze seems unfocused on the page in front of him.

The door is open, but Sam knocks anyway. "Luce. Hey. Can I come in?" 

Lucifer nods, silent, eyes still fixed on his book. Sam drifts into the room. Rather than tower over him, he kneels beside him, hand sliding across his thigh. "Do you wanna talk about it?" Lucifer's eyes squeeze shut. He shakes his head. 

"Michael told me," Sam says softly. "About... him and Adam. Which, you know, I think you were right. Oversharing." He scrunches his nose, and Lucifer huffs a quiet laugh. Finally turns to face Sam. Sam scoots forward between his legs until his knees bracket Sam's sides, and Sam can reach arms around his waist and pull them together. Lucifer leans his head into Sam's shoulder, hiding his eyes. 

"What they... with you," Lucifer starts, and Sam notices that he is shaking subtly. Sam runs one hand along his back, raises the other to hold the nape of his neck, thumb stroking the base of his skull. "Sam, we... can't. _I_ can't." 

"I know." Sam murmurs against his ear. He pauses. Then, as carefully as he can: "Even if we could, do you want that?" 

The shaking intensifies, and Sam turns his head to kiss Lucifer's temple. "Hey. You don't have to answer. Thinking about it freaks me out too." He pulls back, tips Lucifer's chin up until he can meet his gaze. His angel's eyes are wide. Scared. "I'm not going to pretend that's a set of memories I want to revisit either, but it's in the past, ok? We can leave it there. I know who you are _now_. I love you, and I trust you, and we can talk about this if you want. Or we can forget about it. Your call."

Sam tilts his head forward, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed. "Just breathe with me, all right? I'm not going anywhere." Lucifer takes a deep breath in, followed by a long, shuddering exhale. He tugs at Sam until he can hide his face in his shoulder again. Sam pets his hair, slowly and repetitively. 

"I don't know how to talk about this," Lucifer says, voice small and quiet. Sam just listens, patient. "I don't want to scare you, or hurt you, or make you leave."

"I'm not going anywhere. I told you. I'm not scared of you, not any more. If we're talking about this, do you want me to go first?"

Lucifer nods. 

Deep breath. Sam closes his eyes. "I still have nightmares about what it was like. Being possessed. To be trapped in my own body, completely out of control. Being chained down in my own mind, burning and drowning all at once." Lucifer convulses beside him, and Sam runs hands down his arms. Guides his hands under the hem of Sam's shirt, encourages him to touch his skin. Lucifer does so, hands sliding over his waist, and clutches him tighter. Sam returns to petting him. 

"I can never do that again, Luce. But I don't think you could either. And, even through all that, I remember what it felt like where we touched." Sam kisses his neck, voice low over his skin. "Even fractured, even while you were hurting me, you were still the most incredible, beautiful thing. Touching you is indescribable. Overwhelming." 

He pauses. "I know there's a middle ground, between being a vessel and nothing at all. Gabriel and I already have that."

Lucifer shudders. "I'm happy with what we have, Sam. I don't need anything else."

"But you want it, right? It's ok. You're allowed to want this. I'm telling you that you're allowed. I think... I want it too." 

A choking sob. Lucifer is crying, Sam realizes, silent tears beading at the corners of scrunched eyes. He leans back enough to pull Lucifer into a lingering kiss. 

They can do this. 

They remain inches apart. Sam breathes, "We can try. If you want." 

He is quiet. Considering. "We won't get far. I'm still mostly stuck in here." 

"That's fine. We can take this slow. Probably better that way anyway." 

A steadying breath, then Lucifer sighs out, "Please."

Sam waits, eyes closed. Feels - 

\- a tentative brush against his soul. Featherlight, barely there at all. He flinches, reflexively, and Lucifer's breath catches. Sam feels him start to pull away, and reaches back to him. "Sorry, hey, we're good. Just - slowly."

Lucifer nods. "Slowly."

The touch returns. A tiny caress at the edge of his psyche. Sam pushes back at him, focuses. _I love you. I trust you. It's ok, please come here_.

He feels them slide together, an inch at a time, coiling nearer each other. It is nothing like the first time they'd done this - no sharp edges, no blood-drenched madness, no pain. Sam is dizzy with it. Lucifer's breathing is shallow in his ear. 

"Sam," he whispers brokenly. " _Sam_."

Lucifer's grace wraps around his soul, and Sam has the impression of almost unendurable brightness; like looking into the sun, warm and straining and too much. He pulls back a fraction, but doesn't let go. They drift there, holding onto each other, touching without trying for more. Relearning how to share this. 

After long moments, they gradually pull apart. Sam feels Lucifer's grace retreating, and they settle back into their own bodies. They're both shaky. _Like the biggest blood-sugar crash you've ever had_ , Sam thinks. 

He nuzzles at Lucifer's neck. "I love you. That was good, yeah?"

Lucifer purrs against him, gives a breathy laugh. "I guess I owe Michael an apology." 

Sam chuckles. "We can do this again later?" 

Lucifer grins, feral and happy, and pulls Sam into a kiss. "Later," he promises. "Right now, I can think of other ways to get closer together." 

Sam laughs, and lets Lucifer pull him to his feet and out the door, toward their room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rounds of applause for both Adam/Michael, who have BY FAR the least-burdened and healthiest relationship of all of these lovely fools, and also Sam/Lucifer, for just doing their best and loving each other while they're doing it. 
> 
> I suspect that both of these fade-to-blacks might turn into adult-content oneshots to be appended to the series. We'll see what I feel like writing in the next day or two.


	23. W is for Wings (Sam/Gabriel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Shiny.

It's a beautiful day. 

Sunlight dapples through the canopy onto the trail, and the air is warm, rich with the earthy scent of green and growing things. Smaller forest denizens scurry, flitter, and chirp through treetops that shift in gentle breezes. Sam enjoys walking this particular path: both journey and destination are equally pleasant. The destination, in this case, being a glade alongside a shallow burbling creek less than a mile from home. He'd discovered it not long after they inherited the bunker, and in the warmer months it was a favored retreat. 

They'd just come off a grueling series of back-to-back cases, and Gabriel had talked him into taking the day off. 

"Relax a little, Sammy," he'd said, grinning at him across the bed that morning. "You need a break. Listen, I have stuff I need to take care of this morning, but meet me after lunch? I'll bring wine. We can lie around in the sun all afternoon and ignore your responsibilities. If the world ends, Dean can call you." 

And that... well, that had sounded all right by him. Gabriel had a point. He could use a few hours away. 

So Sam walks, bag slung across his shoulder containing blanket, book, and markedly fewer handguns and knives than normal. 

He hears Gabriel before he sees him. Which - to be fair - is usually how it goes. 

Gabriel sits on top of a large rock, whistling tunelessly. Or, at least, Sam thinks it's tuneless - until he realizes that the cluster of small birds in a nearby tree is mimicking him (or possibly the other way around). For a moment, Sam is mesmerized by the twittering call-and-response of the game. Then he laughs, and Gabriel ceases the song to grin up at him as he approaches. 

"Practicing your Disney princess impression?" 

"Nah," Gabriel hops down from the rock, dusts himself off. "Just contributing to what passes for gossip among the local wildlife. Not planning on making any new friends, don't worry." 

Sam chuckles. "Don't even think about it. Dean would throw a fit if a bunch of squirrels and raccoons followed you home." He pulls the angel to his chest. Gabriel, sun-warm and happy, reaches up to drag Sam down into a kiss. 

He pulls back. Smiles. "I believe I was promised wine?"

"And laying around in the sun! Pick your favorite bit of ground, and I'll do the rest." Gabriel's expression is open, easy. Sam almost can't remember the last time they got to be so... _carefree_. He drops the bag on the ground next to him, and shakes out the blanket in a sunny patch beside a fallen log. Gabriel hums approval, and pulls him down to sit beside him. Sam reclines against the log. Tips his head back, eyes closed, and basks in the sun. Gabriel cuddles against him, and he drapes an arm along his shoulders. 

Gabriel pulls a glass of wine out of thin air, hands it delicately to Sam. "For you, Samshine. On the house." 

Sam smiles without opening his eyes. "You know, I think you were right. This is nice. I needed a break." 

" _Sammy_ , please! Of course I was right. I'm always right." 

Gabriel leans his head onto Sam's shoulder, and Sam reaches up to riffle fingers through his hair. He purrs, and tilts over until he can lie on his back, head in Sam's lap and looking up at him. Sam laughs, and continues petting him. 

"How'd you get away from the others, anyway? When I left this morning I thought I might have to come back just to pry you off whatever research Dean tried to put you on." 

Sam shrugs. "I told him I was going out for the day. He's occupied, I think. Cas and Adam were..." He shakes his head, snickering. "... I hate to say _plotting_? They were definitely conspiring about something in the kitchen when I left. Don't know where Michael went, and Luce was reading." He runs fingertips distractedly up and down the length of Gabriel's arm, shoulder to wrist, back again. "I think they're all resting, too, in their own way. Doesn't matter. Like you said, Dean can call me if the world ends. I like it here." A lazy smile up at him, and Gabriel twines their fingers together. Kisses the back of Sam's hand. 

"I do, too. Neat how that works out." 

A small yellow finch alights on the ground several feet away. Sam recognizes it as one of Gabriel's earlier audience. It hops a few inches forward - still well out of reach - and lets forth a series of short, inquisitive peeps. 

Still on his lap, Gabriel tips his head back to look at it. He whistles at it (for all the world managing to sound amused, though how he does it Sam has no idea) and it hops toward them once more, head tilted. Another exchange of chittering tweets, and the finch, apparently satisfied, flickers up and away. 

A bark of laughter escapes Sam. "Archangel, nothing. You're a bird in disguise. What even was that?" 

Gabriel scoffs. "I told you, Sammy. Gossip. And, _by the way_ , I am a force of fury and divinity almost without equal in this universe. I am nothing like a bird." Sam finds his mock-insulted pout spectacularly unconvincing, and leans down to kiss it off him. 

"I mean, you clearly speak bird, you have wings," Sam teases. "Pretty sure that's how that works."

"My wings are _much_ more awesome than a bird's, Sam."

"Uh huh. I'll believe it when I see it." 

A huff of amusement, and a quieter, contemplative look crosses Gabriel's face. Sam peers down at him, still half laughing. The laughter is short-lived. He abruptly finds himself with a lapful of angel. Gabriel pulls them flush together, loops his arms around Sam's shoulders, and kisses him. 

"I want to try something. Close your eyes," he murmurs, playful, "and don't open them until I say so." 

Curious, Sam complies. 

Power crackles over his skin and through the air around them, heavy with the scent of ozone like a sudden storm. Sam feels the quiet hum of his grace flickering around his vessel. His muscles tense under Sam's hands. Abruptly there is a displacement of air, and he feels Gabriel's center of gravity shift back and away. 

"All right," Gabriel says. His voice rings with an echo Sam usually hears only under duress, when his deeper nature bleeds across to the human form he wears. But it's never been quite like this. Mischievous. "Time to test a theory. Open your eyes."

The breath punches out of Sam's chest. 

"Oh _wow_."

Gabriel leans back on his heels, levels a crooked smile at Sam. He glows, radiant, a star made captive in a body that Sam suddenly has a hard time reconciling with the _vastness_ he feels roiling off Gabriel in waves. The edges of him are blurred, an aurora of flickering power. 

He is bracketed by wings, tremendous and glinting golden, sun-drenched. For a moment, Sam forgets to breathe through the awe of it. 

His wingspan must be close to thirty feet. Sam's mind rebels against the notion that Gabriel's body would be able to support them, but then, it doesn't have to. The effect is a visceral gut-punching realization clawing up his chest: the creature in his lap is an inferno of primordial energy, ancient and glorious, and if he sidesteps the laws of physics with a smirk it's only because he's _older_ than they are, outside of their jurisdiction. Because such is his birthright. 

Sam's mouth is dry. The force of the reminder is staggering. His lover, for all that he plays at it, in spite of the shape he wears so comfortably, is the furthest thing from human Sam has ever met. 

It's impossible not to feel small, next to that. 

"See? Not a bird. I told you." 

Gabriel's voice shocks Sam out of his reverie. He flicks the tips of his wings forward toward Sam, affectionate, and cocks his head when Sam finally meets his gaze. His irises shine molten gold. Sam is still speechless, and Gabriel reaches a hand out to trace fingertips that hum electricity along his jaw. "What's the matter, Sammy? Cat got your tongue?" 

Sam blinks, shakes his head. Gabriel tilts back, brow furrowed. "Too much? Dammit. I'm sorry." The light in his eyes and along his skin begins to dim, and Sam snaps out of it.

"Wait! No, I'm fine. I'm just... this is incredible. _You're_ incredible. How am I seeing this?" 

Gabriel brightens again, and his face smooths. "Spend enough time blending your soul together with someone and eventually nothing about them can hurt you any more. We've been wrapped up in each other for so long that you're on your way to being able to see what I really look like. This isn't even close to my real form, but call it... a reasonable approximation. Reasonable for this plane of existence, anyway."

He reaches out a hand to Sam, and Sam carefully meshes their fingers together. Grace licks along his palm. Sam lets out a shuddering breath, and Gabriel's expression clouds, shoulders slumping. "Seriously, am I freaking you out? I can dial it back." With a jolt, Sam realizes that Gabriel is self-conscious. The thought startles a laugh out of him, and he reaches out to pull Gabriel closer to him before he can get the wrong impression. 

"No, come here. Nothing about you could freak me out." Sam smiles at him. "I'm just a little in awe. Sometimes it's easy to forget exactly who I managed to talk into bed with me." 

He chuckles, and the sound settles something in Sam. Vast and otherworldly and fundamentally inhuman as he is, he's still _Gabriel_ , and Sam exhales and leans into the familiarity of it. 

Sam slides a hand around the nape of his neck, and pulls him forward into a kiss. His lips tingle and spark where they meet Gabriel's mouth, and he feels the slow caressing swirl of grace around the edges of his mind. He pulls back, and his eyes flick up to the enormous wings mantled above them. Gabriel has pulled them closer, cocooning around and over them. Sam reaches out a hand, tentatively. "Can I...?"

A faint shiver runs through Gabriel, but he nods. "Go for it." 

He extends a hand gently up to the wing nearest him. Sam has seen Gabriel's feathers before, sharp and metallic and oddly translucent, as thought they were half-in half-out of the physical world, but never while they were still a _part_ of him. Now they shimmer and flutter along the underside of the wing, softer and finer than Sam had ever thought they would be. He delicately runs the tips of his fingers along the soft down. There is resistance, a trembling feedback of energy like touching a live wire, but not strong enough to be alarming. The power in them is a tangible thing, fluctuating and thrumming under his hands. 

Gabriel sighs, and his eyes flutter closed. He drops his head to Sam's shoulder.

"What's that like?" Sam asks.

"Tingly," Gabriel answers after a moment. "More intense than when you touch my vessel. They're closer to being... well, _me_ , than this body is." 

"Why do angels even have wings, anyway?" Sam wonders, fingers still running idly through the feathers. "Not that I'm complaining. They're beautiful. But you don't literally fly with them, right? Not the same way a bird would. So why?" 

Gabriel huffs. "Dunno, Sam, why do you have hands? That part of my form serves a purpose in celestial planes that is the metaphysical equivalent of flight. So when I manifest them on Earth, that's the shape they take. I don't make the rules." Sam hums thoughtfully, and drops his hands back to Gabriel's waist. For a few moments they both relax into the embrace, quiet. 

"What's on your mind, Sam? I can hear that brain of yours ticking away." 

Sam nuzzles into his neck. "Wondering how I ended up here. If I think about it too hard, it's still surreal. I'm just human, Gabriel, just some hunter. Odds should have put my life at being unremarkable, insignificant, and short. And somehow I'm - what? Sitting here with an archangel in my lap. It's a weird feeling, that's all."

Gabriel nips lightly at his jaw, and Sam yelps. The angel's shoulder shake in silent mirth. "Well, knock that off. You're a lot of things, but you couldn't be insignificant if you tried. Dad might have dealt you some strange cards, but the person you are? That's all you. And I love you for it." He tilts his head to look at Sam. "That feeling isn't unique to you, anyway. Or even unique to humans. We're all just doing what we can with what we have and hoping not to screw it up too badly along the way. Even me." He smiles. "Especially me." 

The tips of his wings brush across Sam's arms, and Sam sighs contentedly. "So, how long can you keep that up? I assume you'll have to drop it before we go home." 

A shrug. "Yeah. I can do this indefinitely, but at risk of frying your brothers' eyes out of their heads, probably best not to." 

Sam grins at him. "We don't have to go back for a while, though. In the meantime - " He reaches out to run his fingers through the soft underside of the wing again. Lets his fingertips dig in and drag through the feathers, just a little. Gabriel's breath catches in his chest, and he drops his head to glide lips over Sam's neck. 

"You _tease_."

"Is it teasing if I intend to follow through, though?" He shifts away from where he'd been leaning, and tugs Gabriel down on top of him, sprawling out in the sun like a cat. 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. The look he gives him is heated, fiercely joyful. "So much for your sense of reverence. Let's see what kinds of impiety an archangel can get up to with a human." 

They lose themselves in each other, content to let the world take care of itself for a while, and the afternoon passes them by. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gift you FLUFF <3


	24. X is for Xenomorph (Dean/Castiel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Movie night!

"No, see, the best part is drenching it in butter. And salt. Put more on there." 

"Sam informed me that popcorn was meant to be a more nutritious alternative to your usual dietary choices. I doubt this is what he had in mind." 

Dean rolls his eyes. "Excuse me if I don't take junk food advice from the guy who drinks blended vegetables every other meal. Sam wouldn't know a decent snack if it smacked him on the ass." Castiel finally relents, and hands Dean the bowl. "Here, lemme show you how it's done." He shakes yet more salt onto the popcorn, and Castiel squints at it doubtfully. Dean spreads his hands wide in triumph. 

"Perfect! I'll get the beer, you grab that and follow me." He reaches into the fridge and, beer in hand, leads Castiel down the hall and into the rec room. He flops down onto the couch in an exaggerated sprawl of limbs. 

"I can't believe you've never seen _Alien_. It's a horror classic, you're gonna love it." Dean tilts forward to pull Castiel by the hand down onto the couch next to him, and summons up his cheesiest smirk. "I won't let you get _too_ scared, don't worry." Castiel stares at him, deadpan, but the effect is ruined when the corner of his mouth quirks upward minutely.

Digging the remote out of the couch cushions, Dean flicks through menus. He leans back into the couch, and loops his arm around Castiel, who settles happily against his side. Dean reaches across to hand him a beer, and in exchange, steals the popcorn bowl. 

"Dean, I fail to understand the appeal. Extraterrestrial lifeforms don't exist. Even if they did, you spend all your time hunting inhuman creatures. This doesn't seem like a relaxing activity." 

"Exactly, Cas!" Dean grins. He tosses a kernel of popcorn into the air, tips his head back to catch it in his mouth. "There's _no such thing_ as aliens. I don't have to worry about one of these sorry sons of bitches ever turning up in the middle of a hunt to say hello. Plus, Ripley is a _total badass_. Just wait, you'll see." With that, he starts the movie.

The scene pans through the void of space, eerie music an ominous backdrop to the looming spacecraft. As the shot moves down deserted hallways, Castiel whispers, "When do the aliens show up?" 

He shushes him. "Man, it's gotta work up to it. Half the fun is the slow buildup. The set design, the direction, the pacing - this is craftsmanship. It has to be appreciated." 

Castiel smiles. "That is an amount of patience I find surprising, coming from you." 

Dean jostles him, playfully, and almost spills the popcorn for his trouble. "I put up with you, don't I?"

"Are all humans so rude?"

"You love me and you know it." Dean tugs him into a kiss, chuckling. "Now sit back and watch the movie."

They settle back into each other, Castiel's head on his shoulder. Dean presses a kiss to the top of his head, and Castiel hums contentedly.

And if Dean grips Cas a little tighter through all the jump scares, well, that's nobody's business but their own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had bigger plans for this, but my day job is trying to eat me alive and my brain is mush. So I hope you enjoyed this very short, cute thing. The last two entries will be longer and better.


	25. Y is for Yes: Triptych (Sam/Gabriel/Lucifer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Home is a sanctuary we build of each other, if we are brave enough.

In the half-darkness of their room, Sam sews.

Light from the bedside lamp pools in his lap, glinting off the needle. Lucifer watches his hands weave. His hair falls across his face, head bent, as he patiently reattaches buttons to a worn flannel shirt. 

Sensing his curiosity, Sam peeks up at him. "Luce? You want something?"

He shakes his head. "Why did the buttons come off?"

"Got yanked on a few too many times," Sam grunts, returning to work. "Easy to fix, though." The motions are wavelike, repetitive, and Lucifer tracks them with his eyes. He reaches out, runs the back of his hand along an edge of fabric. It's soft. 

Sam shifts. "Do you want to learn how? I could teach you." He pauses, then shrugs. "I know you could just - " Sam waves the hand holding the needle vaguely in the air, " - will it fixed, but sometimes it's worth knowing how to do stuff the human way." 

Lucifer hums. Tilts his head onto Sam's shoulder, still watching. "Mending things isn't really my strength." 

The needle flashes, then Sam ties off the thread and cuts it free with a knife. He hands the shirt to Lucifer, along with the needle and the final button. 

He smiles, eyes crinkling. "It could be. If you wanted it to be." 

\---------------------------

"Why would you take _his_ side?" Lucifer growls, crossing his arms. 

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Because you're being a jerk, Luci! Michael is doing his best, believe it or not. So maybe, _maybe_ if you could consider not antagonizing him for five minutes? 

The air temperature around them begins to drop.

"I'm antagonizing him?" Lucifer snarls. "How can you - he keeps sneaking off to Heaven to talk to Raphael. You're not even a little concerned? Has he told _you_ what they're doing?" 

He waves a hand, exasperated. "Not in detail, but I got the general idea. In case you forgot, none of them up there are too pleased with the... current arrangement. If left to their own devices, there's no telling the trouble they'd start. Michael is keeping the rest of the Host off all of our backs, and he's doing it for your sake more than anyone else's!"

Lucifer stalks forward, coming nearly nose-to-nose with Gabriel. "You'll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that anything our brethren do is _for my sake_." 

A grimace. "I don't know what to tell you. Whether or not he's still First among us, he's changed, Lucifer. We all have. I trust him. I wish you could, too." 

He meets Lucifer's eyes, then, and it's as though the world around them snaps into focus. He realizes how tightly coiled his muscles are. How close both of them are to running, to abandoning the argument and each other to nurse their anger and pain in solitude. 

He doesn't want to talk about this, wants anything but to stay and deal with the hurt spelled out across Lucifer's face. He can't deny that every instinct screams _fly_. 

A year or a lifetime ago, he would have. 

Instead, he takes a deep breath. Raises a hand to grasp Lucifer's shoulder. 

"Do you trust me?" His voice is quiet.

Lucifer blinks, and all the fight drops out of him. In that moment, he just seems tired. "Of course I do."

Gabriel pulls him into a hug. Closes his eyes, and reaches grace out toward Lucifer. Fear and love and tentative hope clash and roil back at him, and Gabriel soothes him with hands rubbing over his back. 

"I'm done running from our problems, or taking them out on each other. So is Mike. I hope you can be, too." The words are softly spoken, and Lucifer leans into him, lets Gabriel bear some of his weight. "We're not leaving you behind, not ever again. Please, just... give Michael the space he needs. For me. You know I can't stand to see you fight."

There is a sigh against his neck, then Lucifer chuckles. "All right. But only for you. And only because you're my favorite." 

Gabriel grins. "I'm telling Sam you said that." 

Lucifer shoves him away playfully, and Gabriel laughs.

\---------------------------

Every day, in the moment between sleep and wakefulness, Sam feels the slightest catch of surprise. These days, it's rare for him to wake alone. And yet, there's always something about the closeness of other beings as he makes the transition back to daylight. It takes him constantly off guard. As though, even now, his subconscious hasn't accepted the permanence of his situation. 

They're both still in bed with him. Gabriel is sprawled across his back, face tucked into Sam's hair behind his neck. The corner of Sam's mouth quirks. Gabriel snores, lightly, and his heart constricts at how utterly human it is, how disarmingly _cute_. 

On the other side, Lucifer curls against his chest, silent, warm, and peaceably dreamless. 

That the angels slept at all had initially been perplexing. He knew they didn't need to, knew it didn't come easily or naturally to them. But Gabriel had played at heathenry for much of his existence, and apparently found some measure of satisfaction in it still. What had been more curious was the enthusiasm with which Lucifer had taken to it. Sam privately suspected it had less to do with the act of sleep itself, and more to do with the safety and comfort of nearness.

Gabriel stirs behind him, and an arm creeps across his waist. 

"Stop thinking so loud," he mutters. "Try sleeping instead." 

"I'm just appreciating you. Waking up with you still here is nice." He can feel Gabriel's smile against his skin, a brush of lips on the nape of his neck. 

"Glad you approve." Gabriel stretches, leans up on one elbow to hook his chin over Sam's shoulder. "I like being here. Amazing how well that works out." 

Sam twines fingers with Gabriel's hand at his side. Raises their clasped hands to his mouth, and presses a kiss to Gabriel's knuckles. "Think you'll ever get tired of it?" 

"Of what? Of you?" Gabriel scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Not exactly what I meant," Sam shakes his head. "Playing house with the humans. Sleeping and cooking and hunting like we do. Slowing yourself down so I can keep up with you." 

Gabriel pulls at him until he rolls onto his back. He looks down at Sam, expression patient, softly laughing. 

"Is that what you think we're doing here? Sam. I'm not hanging around until I get bored and fly off after the next shiny new toy. I love you. Luci loves you. You have a human life to live, and that's good, that's how it's supposed to be. I'm happy and grateful you're letting us live it with you." 

"It'll end, though," Sam says, walking fingers slowly down his arm. "Human lives do." 

"We promised you forever, and believe me, that word has a fundamentally different meaning when your lifespan is theoretically infinite." Sam reaches up to wrap a hand around his neck, and pulls him down into a kiss. Gabriel sighs over his lips, contented. "Your soul is in our care until you get sick of us and send us away. Which, by the way, I'm hoping is a long time off." 

Sam laughs, quiet. "I meant it when I said it, too. Forever. For however long that is." 

A hand glides over his chest from the other direction, and Sam tips his head to see Lucifer looking back at him. A small, slow smile crawls across his face. Lucifer pulls himself closer to Sam and lays his head on his arm. 

"Sorry we woke you up." He kisses Lucifer on the forehead. 

Lucifer shrugs. "I don't mind." A pause. "He's right, you know. We're not going anywhere." 

Warmth blooms through his chest, as Gabriel and Lucifer settle down alongside him. 

"I know. But thanks for reminding me." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long, this week was h e c k
> 
> Only one more to go! Are you excited? I'm excited.


	26. Z is for Zenith (Coda: All)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Tomorrow we may fall back to Earth, but that's tomorrow. Today we have this.

"Stop staring straight at the sun, it's weirding me out. If you were human you'd fry your eyes." 

Gabriel leans back on his hands, gazing upward. "Aw, Sammy, I didn't know you cared so much about my eyesight. I'm touched. You're just jealous you can't see this like I can, though. Solar flares are spectacular, very high drama." 

"Well, you're the expert on high drama." 

"Hey!"

Sam grins, and launches himself at Gabriel. They roll together through the grass, Gabriel flailing, Sam digging fingers into Gabriel's ribs as the archangel splutters and laughs. 

Lucifer perches near them on the crest of the hill, elbows propped on his knees. He watches them tussle, briefly, before he rolls to his feet and looks around. Apparently settling on a direction, he begins to meander away, hands in pockets. 

Gabriel and Sam glance up, wrestling temporarily forgotten. "Where are you going?" Gabriel asks. 

Lucifer inclines his head toward the base of the hill. A small, tree-lined pond takes up much of the park, and Castiel is seated near the waterline, patiently luring in a family of ducks. Dean stands next to him, watching. 

"Going to help Castiel make friends with the wildlife. You coming?"

With an exaggerated sigh, Gabriel pushes Sam off. Sam smirks at him. He stands in one fluid motion, grabbing the smaller man around the waist as he does so. Gabriel squawks as Sam hoists him unceremoniously over his shoulder. 

"Squirm all you want," Sam says jovially. "If you wanted to get down, you would. Yeah, we're coming." 

From where his head is pillowed on Michael's leg, Adam watches them go. 

"Ten bucks says one of them ends up in the water in the next twenty minutes." He chuckles, looks up at Michael. "What was he going on about? Solar weather more interesting than normal today?" 

Michael tilts his head back to gaze at the sun. "Yes. The surface is unusually active. He was correct; it is quite beautiful." 

"That means aurora tonight or tomorrow, right? We'd have to go to, I dunno, Canada or something to watch them. But we could."

"We could." Michael blinks down at him, sun-warmed and content. "Would you like to?" 

From away down the hill, he hears the others calling to one another. Castiel has rocked back on his heels, one hand extended towards the ducks. Dean kneels next to him, and even from here his expression seems doubtful. Gabriel has climbed a tree, which Lucifer leans against, and he tosses something down from the branches into Sam's outstretched hands.

Adam closes his eyes, basking in the sunlight. "Ask me again later. Too lazy to make decisions right now." He nuzzles his head against Michael's stomach. 

Michael tips back to lay on the grass, arms crossing behind his head. Adam looks up into the sky, nothing but boundless cerulean and high cirrus wisps. The scent of green grass and clear water drifts on the breeze. 

"I feel like a kid," Adam murmurs, picking blades of grass and letting them tumble between his fingers. "Mom and I used to do this sometimes. Just hang out in the park for a day. She usually had to work but whenever her schedule let us - she'd bring me to a place that had a bunch of playground equipment to climb on, and a lot of open space to run around in." He waves a hand in the direction of the pond. "Didn't have water like this place, but I fell out of my share of trees." 

"I know," Michael says. "You've shown me those memories." He pauses. Drops a hand to the top of Adam's head, twines fingers into his hair. Adam hums, presses back into his hand. 

"Do you miss it? That life? I know it was... simpler." 

Adam shrugs. "Not really. I miss my mom. But the rest?" He leans up onto one elbow, propping himself up so he can look at Michael. "I wouldn't trade it. Sure, every so often something nasty still crawls out of the woodwork to bother us and gets itself killed for its trouble, which isn't my favorite. And I'm not saying getting here was easy. But I have brothers, now. Which is still weird, but, you know. Good weird?" He laughs, and his smile turns fond. "And I have you. You're the best thing that ever happened to me." 

Their eyes meet, and Michael smiles. His gaze flicks back up to the sky. "I spent so much of my existence struggling to bring our Father back. I thought, if I were only strong enough to shoulder the burden, if I was dutiful and righteous and unwavering enough for all of us, then all could know Paradise. And yet - " 

He rolls his head to the side, looking down the hill. Castiel has convinced one of the ducks to let Dean pet it, and he is transfixed. Sam is attempting to coax Gabriel down from his tree, without apparent success. Lucifer slowly edges closer to Castiel and Dean. 

"I was so badly mistaken. Paradise was always here. I simply did not understand how to see it." 

Michael pulls himself up until they are face to face, hand clasped around Adam's neck. "I do not yet know how much more of joy there is to discover in this world, now I have accepted it for what it is. But I look forward to spending the rest of my existence finding out by your side." 

There is a sudden splash from down the hill. Their heads swivel as one to see Lucifer, doubled over laughing, presiding over a flummoxed Castiel and a cursing, drenched Dean. Gabriel and Sam likewise cackle in the background, and Lucifer takes off running back up the hill as Dean extracts himself from the pond. 

"Told you," Adam chortles. 

"Behold my surprise," Michael says, deadpan.

Lucifer returns, flopping down onto the grass beside them and giggling still.

"What exactly was that about?" Michael queries, eyebrow arched. 

"Ah. Training exercise. I was just teaching him the value of vigilance." 

Adam snickers, and even Michael cracks a smirk. Gabriel and Sam come loping over to settle themselves beside Lucifer. Castiel and a dripping Dean trail close behind. 

Gabriel tosses something to Adam, round and bright. "We found an apple tree! Well, I found an apple tree. Dean found a pond." 

Dean grumbles. "You mean I found a _menace_ , more like. Teach me to take my eyes off the devil." 

Lucifer sticks his tongue out at him. "Child," Dean mutters. 

"Aw, come on, Deano. Where's your sense of adventure? Luci just wanted to take you swimming." Gabriel bites into an apple happily, and hands another to Sam. 

Castiel smiles at Dean, sly. "It's true, Dean, forgiveness is the first step to happiness. Perhaps you should reach out to Lucifer? In the spirit of reconciliation?" He cocks his head and meets Dean's eyes. A moment passes between then, and then Dean grins. 

"You know what? Cas is right. C'mere, Luce. Let's hug it out." 

Lucifer realizes what's about to happen the instant before it does, and his face scrunches in consternation as Dean leans down and tackles him into a bear hug. He flails, water from Dean's clothes soaking his as well. 

"Get _off_ me, I will end you - what are you - Sam!" Sam topples against Gabriel's side, gasping for air as he laughs, and is of absolutely no help. Lucifer shoves Dean away, and they break apart to stare at each other, wild-eyed. Then Dean flops backward onto the grass, chuckling, and after a beat Lucifer snickers and snaps his fingers, drying them both. 

"Suppose it could've been worse. As long as my phone still works." 

Adam leans back to lay his head once more on Michael's thigh, and takes a bite from the apple Gabriel gave him. It's crisp, bright and wild across his tongue. As the others continue their congenial bickering, Adam thinks Michael was right. 

This, nothing but clear sky and warm sun and sweet apples and each other, _this_ is paradise.

All they had to do was learn how to see it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of this one. If you read this and enjoyed it: I am, from the bottom of my heart, glad. Thank you for hanging out in my head with me for a while. 
> 
> I'm not done with this AU yet. Completely aside from a few random one-shots still in the works, I think I may actually have found enough dedication to write a thing with a plot next time. Something more than these loosely-interconnected first drafts of ships and fluff. But spending time thinking about how I wanted to relate to the characters, trying out new writing styles, figuring out what worked and what didn't - this has been a lot of fun. It might take a bit (got other projects I want to work on too), but I'll be back. 
> 
> If you're bored in the meantime, come [poke at me on tumblr](https://fandom-space-princess.tumblr.com). I'm not super active, but if I make anything cool it'll probably end up there as well as here. And I'd love to hear about anything cool *you're* working on, too :)


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